


Between Acts

by ballade_at_thirtyfive



Category: Football RPF
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-27
Updated: 2013-07-12
Packaged: 2017-12-13 02:19:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 27,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/818819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ballade_at_thirtyfive/pseuds/ballade_at_thirtyfive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Gerlonso saga seen from Alex Gerrard's point of view. Or how to become casual friends with your husband's lover, survive living in proximity to Carra and make vain promises of never wearing lace jumpsuits again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

 

 A few years from now Stevie will smile cheekily at the camera telling the story of how you two met. How you played hard to get, constantly fending off his advances and not giving him the time of the day. How he thought he blew it when he texted you instead of one of his friends, how he came over when you were babysitting your brother and how you freaked out because you didn’t even have foundation on.

 Most people will be surprised to hear that you were smart enough to play your cards so well. Other girls- much better looking and arguably nicer girls- ended up with something less than a one night stand a fake phone number. But you knew that footballers are always in search of trophies and that a victory won in injury time is all the more valued. So you went around town, where you knew he would see you, and pranced about, not a worry in the world, careful not to look back. Of course, you had to give in before he lost interest and then quickly seal the deal with a baby. Mission accomplished.

 Except.. Except it wasn’t quite like that.

 For one, you didn’t care much about the money. That is not to say you are some Mother Theresa with too much fake tan, no. It’s just that your taste is cheap, so cheap it could be kept even with you working short shifts at the nails saloon. Dolly Parton was wrong, it doesn’t take a lot of money to look like this. And anyway, what good would money do to you, when you can make Prada look like Primark? Not to say that you'd actually prefer Primark from the start. Of course, you won’t even blink at spending 10 000 pounds on bag, but it’s only because it’s there, new and shiny. Because you can, not because you wanted to.

 So it wasn’t money.

 What you really relinquished was the promise of never again having to make a decision in your life. Just delve into him and be done with it all.

 And yes, you were flattered. Not because he was such a promising footballer; you can’t even recognize great footballers, promising ones are out of the question. But because there was enough fire within him to keep you warm for all the Liverpool winters to come.

 You kept saying no because you knew that all you could offer was a great night and a not so lousy breakfast. And you didn’t want him to prove you right.

 You kept saying no because you were afraid some stupid Manc, built like a fridge and deemed too violent for boxing would knock into him on the pitch and that would be it. You didn’t want to see that.

 But.

 But besides the swagger, the crazy ambition, the unfortunate hair line and the premature wrinkles.. Besides that, all you saw was this insane desire to be loved.

 And as he was playing video games with your brother, turning every two minutes to throw you looks alternating from ‘ _see how good I am with kids, family man, me_ ’ to ‘ _I’ll fuck you so hard you won’t be able to walk for days_ ’ and ‘ _tell me what to do here, do I let him win? Do I put up a good fight? Am I putting up a good fight?_ ’.. As he was playing and eventually fisting the air in victory, that’s when it happened.

_I could do this. I could love you. Not enough for the entire city, but I could. I’ll put the kettle on when it rains and I’ll change the station when I know there’s a song you don’t like. I’ll tuck your sweater tags back in and hold your hand when you can’t sleep. I’ll run you baths and buy you things you don’t need for Christmas and fight for the telly with you. I’ll laugh at your jokes and remember not to buy any sort of toffees after you play Everton. I’ll get angry because you’ll leave your clothes all over the place and you’ll be brave enough to try my new recipes. You’ll keep me warm. And I’ll keep you light._

_I could, I might, I may, I will. I do._

In a blink of an eye. 

People warn you about the certain inconveniences of dating a footballer. But in his arms it doesn’t matter.

And yet, even if you could live with an open marriage, you are not that worried about other leggy blondes. You are self-confident like that.

There’s a difference between an open marriage and a crowded marriage, though.

But in his arms it doesn’t matter.


	2. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Xabi has not yet quit smoking.

 

First and foremost, let there be put on record that you are not one to swim against the tide. Fighting things you can’t control is not something you wish to pursue as a career. Not that careers are something you deem worth pursuing anyway, but you really can’t see the point of one that involves an everyday struggle with things that are far beyond your reach. Drifting is much more pleasurable than standing in the way of hurricanes or other natural disasters. 

 You’ve always enjoyed drifting; when you were little you used to take this erratic walks in which you crossed  the road wherever the green light indicated and ended up on the other side of town,  tired and lost. You had to retrace every corner you took, every funny looking house you passed, every bar brawl you avoided, only to arrive back home where your mother was still filing her nails, apparently not having moved the whole day. 

 Of course, back then you were the one who decided when to stop. Now you are wandering in somebody else’s adventure with very little sense of power. The little snippets of assumption you transform into knowledge late at night when Stevie’s stolen most of the blanket and the rain pours with deliberate aggression are your only form of control. 

 Lack of control can also easily be seen all around you. The party you are at is getting wilder and wilder and fuck if you know what you’re celebrating. You know it’s a bit too early in the season to account for Jerzy and Carra doing some sort of polka dance while Riise is playing a complicated game of beer pong with himself and losing magnificently. On the other side of the room, Stevie stopped dealing the cards for the poker game a while ago and he’s trying to make a castle out of them instead; Didi’s protests are muffled by the amount of food he’s trying to push into his mouth without using his hands which are still full of poker chips. Next to you, the desperate Scouse wives are laughing like a bunch of harpies while ratting on about babies and furniture. Which you would too, with much pleasure, but you are a couple drinks short of the general atmosphere and you don’t really feel like catching up. If you remember correctly, this is only the first leg. Surely, they should be saving their strength, playing it safe, not challenging Smincer to a how-much-vodka-can-you-drink-before-throwing-up-all-over-Carra’s-pool-table contest. 

 Aren’t footballers supposed to be superstitious? 

 You sigh and make your way to the kitchen; might as well save some alcohol before the whole house goes down in flames. As you open the door, the first strings of ‘In the air tonight’ start blasting through the room and you feel somehow reassured to know that Stevie can still work a CD player.

 What shocks you when you enter the kitchen is how remarkably clean it is. The conspicuous lack of bottles make you think this was meant to be a quiet, relaxing night in. 

 You pray to God you won’t be here when Carra realizes the team has been downing his whiskey collection and make your way to the garden for a smoke. 

 The wind is blowing, sharp and cold, and you almost give up on your cigarette, give up on cigarettes in general, when you notice Xabi sitting on the stone stairs, apparently unfazed by the weather.  You walk to him, hoping the sound of your heels will disrupt his thoughts before your presence does.  You are surprised to find him here. The last you saw him, he was deep in conversation with Sami and Lucas; the time you saw him before that he was listening to Stevie’s recollection of a particularly funny incident involving Carra, Jerzy, a bunch of goats and an airport. He was laughing at all the right moments, too, but you suspect that it had more to do with the easiness he falls into pace with your husband, on and off the pitch, than his mastery of the Scouse humour. 

 He turns to you and makes to stand up but you stop him with a string of no, no, no, no-s. You sit next to him and he insists on giving you his jacket with a boyish smile. You are too cold to protest.

 You are both looking straight ahead, your shoulders attached, ignoring each other’s presence, as if sitting very still and looking far into the cold distance will stop the awkwardness from emerging.

 You fumble with the lighter but the wind is still as bitchy, and your fingers are shaking with the knowledge they are in that crude place between wanting and needing.  And your heart is starting to spin in the thoracic cavity, gaining velocity with the prospect of losing all sense of control.

 Xabi takes the lighter and the cigarette from your hands and lights it himself; you are dumbly surprised that he would smoke even if you saw him doing so on numerous occasions. You pass the cigarette between yourselves, his fingers brushing comfortably against your own. You then light another and another until the pack empties. 

 This way of smoking makes you feel childish and transports you back into a time when your shoes weren’t so uncomfortable and your hands weren’t so resolutely tied. A time of broken curfews and stolen kisses and kisses that never happened; a time of cars that never went anywhere and boys who only ever talked about cars. A time when you actually wished for people to break their promises so you wouldn’t have to keep your own.

 It’s quite incredible, the sense of complicity that can be reached during several figs.  It’s quite incredible to be young, and numb with cold, but burning like the tip of a last cigarette.

 You find yourself drifting into Xabi and yes, maybe it’s a stupid way you try to gain some control, some way to get one over Stevie, some way to forge yourself a part. But maybe it’s just because he tilts his head a bit when he speaks, or because he sticks his tongue between his teeth when he grins, because you instinctively know his long passes will reach their destination, or maybe because of his ridiculous, ridiculous haircut.

 You put your hand on his chest and his heart is beating hurriedly through layers and layers and layers and good God how many things is he wearing?  It suddenly hits you that you should go hunting sometime; he already dresses like an English aristocrat who would chase down a fox for three days straight and then let it be.

 It’s a blessing really and you know, even in that moment in which you are drifting into him and you’re lips are drifting into his and his are drifting into yours and you are essentially drifting into each other, even then you know that your blessing is not needed.  It’s just an innocuous little secret; a consolation of sorts.

 You’re surprised he actually kisses you back but you suppose he really is _that_ polite. 

 The kiss breaks after a few moments, for lack of heart or lack of air, and he looks at you, so young, so vulnerable. And maybe it’s just your own reflection you’re seeing. Maybe you’re just as young and just as vulnerable even if your belongings don’t fit into three boxes and you didn’t find yourself suddenly emerged into a sea of red, one thousand miles from home.

 Maybe he’s just more afraid; his part _is_ a bit more difficult.

 You smile and kiss his check to assure him that he has not found himself trapped between the Scouse versions of Marquise de Merteuil and Vicomte de Valmont in some sort of Machiavellic game. He still looks a bit startled so you shrug your shoulders and murmur close to his ear.

 ‘It’s okay. We’re between acts now’

 You are not sure if he understands you but the metaphor is so perfect you feel he simply must. You almost tell him to ‘break a leg’ but you fear his English isn’t that up to speed and you prefer not to risk it.

 You make your way back into the warmth of the house, leaving the wind still blowing like mad and Xabi with the faintest of smiles and no jacket.

 Back into the living room Stevie and Carra are duelling each other with pool sticks while the rest of the team is watching from different, very uncomfortably looking, positions.  Didi’s taking bets and there’s a combustion of noise and light; you find yourself laughing, cheering for Stevie and whistling like mad to the Gerrard song along with the younger lads.  He glances at you and Carra pounces on his momentary distraction to sway the stick against his legs. Stevie collapses dramatically and Jamie declares himself the biggest and fucking hardest man south of Edinburgh. He then trips over the rug and falls behind the couch with a loud thud and some very unmanly giggles. 

 You carve a path through drunken strikers into Stevie’s arms.

 A thousand spotlights deafen you.

 The next morning Stevie will insist on returning his jacket right away. ‘He might need it, you know.’

 The curtains rises. 

 

 

 


	3. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Xabi drinks straight from the bottle

 

You had been pestering him for months and months but he has never given in. ( _It’s a family secret, Alex. I can’t find the right ingredients here, Alex. I must protect the people of Gotham, Alex)._ You pouted and kept nagging in that childish manner people have long accepted that you would never grow out of. It became some sort of ritual; when the food was gone and the big glasses of wine almost empty, you would try to _subtly_ stir the conversation in the right direction. When that promptly failed (Stevie falling over in laughter, Xabi arching an eyebrow, Nagore chuckling into her wine glass) you tried a more direct approach.

 ’Chervil?’

‘No. ’

’Costmary?’

’No.’

’Leptotes?’

’No. ’

’The cooking pan?’

‘No.’

‘The radius of the…’ Stevie kisses you hard, shaking with laughter. Nagore assures you that she really, really, really has no idea. And Xabi… Xabi just smiles into his wine glass.

Which is why it comes as a huge surprise when he appears at your door, balancing a couple of bags containing enough food to feed a small country in Africa or something equally hungry like Liverpool’s team after a game. Or before a game. Or at half time.

You let Xabi in and he heads to the kitchen where he starts talking animatedly in Spanish, probably criticising your choice in pans and cutlery. You move slowly, almost in a daze. You were just waiting for the day to pass, curled on the sofa, watching re-runs. Stevie is visiting his mother with the girls and you were using the time to eat ice cream out of the box wearing yesterday’s clothes and screaming at the TV.  You are obviously not prepared for any kind of visits.

You follow Xabi into the kitchen still not believing he’d finally show you how he does his famous stew and throw to hell and high heavens your beautiful choreography. Doesn’t he like your dance?!

You watch him as he rolls up his sleeves humming along the radio and taking what looks to be half a cow out of a bag.

‘You don’t have to do this, you know.’

Your words are light, as if you were commenting on the weather or asking him the time but they still feel like a slip.

He stops what he is doing to look at you.  The words left a bitter taste inside your mouth, like badly aged whiskey. 

There’s a long silence, as if you forgot your lines and for a moment you dumbly look around for the script. Improvisation really doesn’t suit you.

You stir under his gaze, avoiding his eyes and staring at a point above his head; he’s looking at you like as if you were Chelsea’s strategy for next week’s game.

’Peel those off, eh’ he says handing you a bag of mushrooms.

You glance at him and and feel yourself falling back into your part ‘Ah, no, Xabi, give me something exciting to do, I don’t want to peel things. I want to chop the meat or make the sauce or prepare the oven..’ He smiles.

‘Really? Of all the exciting things you choose preparing the oven?’ he asks as he starts peeling the mushrooms with dexterity.

‘ It _is_ rocket science!’’ you answer while cutting the freshly peeled mushrooms into tiny slices.

You work until your fingers bleed (which takes about five minutes) and then just watch him. The lines on his forehead when he tries to remember a word, the way he gestures with his hands telling you about some album, forgetting he is holding a very large and sharp knife, the quickness of his moves, the concentrated look on his face after tasting something( always deciding it needs more pepper) his attempts to light the oven (matches everywhere and enough swear words to now consider yourself fluent in Spanish), his laugh at your shocked expression when you see him drinking wine straight from the bottle, his voice and the way it changes with the subject (rough,  sweet, red).

You talk about the girls, Liverpool, a film he desperately wants to see, San Sebastian, The Beatles and The Rolling Stones; Meryl Streep, Big Brother, Margaret Thatcher, the best pastry shop in town and the statistical chances of winning the lottery. You mostly let him talk and just watch as all his shyness or awkwardness or worry or whatever comes with his sleeping with your husband just disappears over the frying and boiling pans. His moves are raw, pure elegance. And you can’t help but understand Stevie.

He _still_ makes you close your eyes before putting in the secret ingredient.

You don’t even peek.


	4. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Alex can't be seen in a bookstore.

It starts at one of the dinners for the new players and their families that Stevie decides it’s his duty as captain to hold. And your duty to cook within thirty minutes notice.

At one point in the evening you almost run to the bathroom, quickly close the door behind you and breath a sigh of relief. Until you turn around and realise you’re not alone. Xabi is sitting on the floor, leaning against the bathtub and reading your copy of Bridget Jones’s Diary.

You sit down next to him and you couldn’t tell exactly when things got quite so comfortable but you are not one to question this kind of things anyway.

You arch an eyebrow in his direction

‘They all talk so fast. And by the time I translated it all back and through three languages, they are talking about something different. ’

‘They’re drunk.’

‘I suppose.. You?’

‘I heard Pepe saying something about seconds.’

The silence is not exactly awkward and even if it were, you still wouldn’t go out and face the Liverpool team asking for more food.

‘This Bridget Jones, she is very funny, no?’

‘Yes, funny is one way to look at it.. You can have the book if you want.’

‘You sure?’

‘Yeah, I saw the movie.’

You completely forget about this until, a couple of weeks later, Stevie presents you with a hardback copy of Pride and Prejudice.

‘It’s from Xabi. He said something about taking a look at the real Mr Darcy.’ He looks at you vaguely amused and puts the book on your nightstand.

You don’t plan on even opening it; there’s enough day time TV too keep you from doing something as drastic.

But it has such a nice cover.

You read it, almost in one go, and use Stevie’s phone to call Xabi at 2 am after you finish it.

‘Stevie?’

‘No, it’s Alex. I didn’t have your number.’

‘Oh....uhm.. ’

‘I finished the book.’

‘Oh..Yes. The book.’

_Why did you think I was calling you at 2 am for?_

‘Lizzie is such a bitch, all she ever does is sit around, judge people and wait for her happy ending.’

 The irony is not completely lost.

He chuckles over the phone.

‘Good thing I didn’t send you Emma then.’

‘Who’s Emma?’

 _This_ is how it starts.

He sends you a book every other week, saving you the embarrassment of being seen in a bookstore, or worse, a library. You then talk about it and while your comments are not particularly insightful he still laughs over the phone, genuinely intrigued by your remarks. It’s like a two person book club. He almost guides you through them and you never had a friend like this.

The books start to stack up.

You agree that Emily Bronte was the only Bronte sister worthy of recognition and that the other two probably killed her in her sleep. He does insist on the irony of her actually dying from tuberculosis, the romantics’ disease, but finally agrees that her being murdered by Charlotte and Anne is much more plausible.

You stay up till dawn reading Sherlock Holmes stories because they’re classic. ‘ _How can you read other detective stories without reading Doyle first?_ ’

He uses all his connections to get two copies of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows two days ahead of the official launch. You listen to him talk about Lupin and Tonks while you wonder what happened with Lavender.

You buy him the entire James Bond collection after you see him in a tux.

He gives you Fiesta, The Sun Also Rises and you feel like crying in your pillow after you finish it. He promises to take you to a bull fight.

You say that the Great Gatsby is a bit over the top. ‘Everybody is in love with the wrong person and Daisy is the worst kind of cunt.’ You’ve never seen him so angry.

He sends The Godfather and you piss off Stevie talking with an Italian accent for weeks afterwards.

You read The Catcher in the Rye and you ask whether you should have read it in your teens.

‘No, it’s better this way. You’ll appreciate it for the right literary motives.’

‘…’

‘Right. Better late than never anyway.’

You both love Nick Hornby’s books and decide Stendhal is overrated. You accuse him of destroying the movie for you when he sends Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

You imagine what would have happened if Dorothy Parker and Jack Kerouac got married.  He even tries to explain all the symbolism in Virginia Woolf.

You veto James Joyce.

And you never had a friend like this.


	5. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Liverpool loses a match.

It’s no secret you’re not a football expert. The kindest thing that can be said about you is that you’re casually acquainted to it. You do know the offside rule and you possess the instinctive knowledge that some matches are more important than others and that penalties are particularly stressful stuff.

You also know Stevie can beat himself up for days and days even for a misplaced pass so you don’t feel particularly inclined to spend the night at your mothers’ and leave him all alone, burning holes in the carpet with his pacing, grumbling and trying very hard not to smash things.  And there’s also the fact that you don’t want to spend the night at your mother’s.

You drive in the night and glance at your watch. The post match drink-your-liver-away session should be all but over by now.

You start thinking of all the ridiculous things the girls did today, of the stupid remarks your mother made and the funny shit you heard on the radio. You know you won’t be able to distract him, but you’ll try anyway.  At the very least you’ll attempt to outdrink him while he’s going over every pass and prevent him from drowning in the shower.

You turn off the engine and start searching for your key in the massive bag. Ten minutes of inventive swearing later you find it and open the door, not once thinking you could just knock.

The TV’s spreading a blue light and the Sky Sport commentator seems to still be muttering about one thing or the other. You dislike him as you dislike all commentators; Stevie rarely watches them when the result is good.

You look around for the remote but stop in your tracks.  Crouched on the sofa, Stevie’s face buried in Xabi’s shoulder, Xabi’s hand resting on the nape of his neck, fingers trailing under Stevie’s shirt. And your heart clenches with cold blood.

There’s a buzzing in your ears and every colour seems to come alive, vibrating and darting towards you. You are rooted to the spot wondering if you should turn off the telly or not.  The sudden lack of noise might wake them up but, on the other hand, you’ve read this article about how falling asleep with a source of light nearby severely undermines the quality of the rest, something about melatonin and the pineal gland and reddish light from fire has little or no affect because the human brain is used to it since the beginning of time because caves were wet and cold and where the fuck is the remote?

 You will yourself to breath and take short, silent steps towards the door. How very fortunate you’re wearing flats and how very fortunate minimal furniture is in right now so there’s nothing to knock into on your way out. How. very. fortunate.

The car starts humming on your third try.

You’d have preferred to see them sleeping together than actually asleep. Moaning and groaning, biting, sucking, whimpering, howling, whatever. Seriously, you’d choose mad, sex-swing, kinky-orgy fucking over _this_ any day.  You mean it, cocks flying all over the place, the whole Liverpool team if necessary, hell, bring the English squad, anything but not.. not this.. Not their soft, synchronized breathing with Martin fucking Tyler on the background.

You drive and drive and your mind is relentlessly trying to come up with ways to make this okay; to convince you that the difference between knowing and seeing is only a linguistic nuance. You never thought twice about their kiss in Istanbul. That was winning topped up with exhilaration and adrenaline; bodies bursting with life and ripping themselves at the seams.

This isn’t winning.

Had it been a woman, you think, you’d have really went to town with her; hair pulling, nail scratching, bitch slapping, the whole cat fight show.  People would’ve had to be called over to separate you and the thing would’ve held the headlines for weeks.  Really now, most of the time, your shoes can cause some pretty lasting damage. And you don’t live in Maghull and not learn a thing or two.  You have a mean left hook and you are not a particularly decent person.  

Had it been anyone else.

You drive and drive and drive and by the time you reach your parents’ home you’ve prioritized your problems into having to spend the night under your mother’s roof (urgent) and everything else.               

You get out of the car and knock on the door, keys in your hand. Your mother doesn’t ask anything and somehow that’s even more irritating.

You fall asleep near morning, with the telly on.


	6. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Carra hogs the karaoke machine.

Going shot for shot with Pepe was a remarkably bad idea. Quite satisfying in its stupidity, though.  A sense of giddiness overcomes you and you feel capable of truly great and brave things like wrestling the karaoke machine from the tyrannical rule of Carra. You actually consider for a moment whether your well-being is worth trying to pry the microphone away from his fingers; you almost divulge your plan to Pepe but then decide against it. Who knows? Maybe he's actually enjoying Carra’s rendition of ‘Get Sexy’ from Sugababes. For the fourth time in two hours.

You sway a little as you try to make your way to one of the couches so, naturally, Pepe sees this as the best moment to start twirling you around.  All the alcohol goes straight to your head and, as you hear his maniacal laugh you decide once and for all that Spanish people are trouble. Still, you can’t hold it against him as he kisses your cheek and thrusts a bottle of champagne into your hands ‘for later’.

Yolanda glares at you.

Ah, well. It’s not as if she liked you anyway. None of the wags do and you don’t possess the audacity to pretend you don’t know why. But really now, some innocent flirting, a bit of boisterous laughter as you’re clinging to their husbands’ arms, tilting your head back and swinging your hair, and they look at you as if you skim babies for fun.  And anyway, the only reason Pepe is so eager to keep you company is because he’s trying to avert your eyes from where Steven and Fernando are sitting on one of the more recluse couches, entirely too close for anyone’s comfort. 

You are most grateful for Pepe’s attempts; you fear that without his knowledge in mixology and weird dancing moves you would have done something wholeheartedly more stupid to show that you haven’t noticed how Steven’s arm is resting between Fernando’s shoulder blades, how he dips his head in order to whisper into his ear or how his other hand just about skims his knee. Oh, yes. Something entirely more stupid, like maybe smashing a dozen bottles of champagne into his head while screaming like a lunatic. But, no. that would mean you have noticed and that would really defeat the purpose of pretending your husband is not a sadistic, vicious cunt.

You see him throw a glance to a far corner; a slight crack in his otherwise perfect performance. Someone who knew him less wouldn’t even notice, but it’s been some time since you afforded that kind of luxury. You are painfully, gut-wrenchingly, obscenely aware of what is happening. Stevie’s not the only one with a keen understanding of locker room politics. For fuck’s sake you are neither blind nor the right kind of stupid to ignore what is taking place right in your living room.

So you sigh and make your way towards the man whose relaxed composure is an even more award-winning act than Steven’s interest in the young Spanish striker. Xabi looks up when he hears the noise of your heels and what you see in his eyes reminds you of one of those poems that doesn’t rhyme and disrupts your sleep when you least expect it. Actually, it’s even worse than that; it’s like the balcony, the poison and the dagger all rolled into one with some adulterous woes and spiteful words added to the mix. You want to take him away from there, to tell him that there’s a downside to his studied defiance, that there are more pleasurable ways to hurt yourself than this, that this is not the end, that he should go right there and punch him.

Twice.

You want to tell him that this voyeuristic game will leave scars so deep there will be whole parts of him that will go completely numb. You want to make him promise that when the time comes he will forgive your husband.

But you can’t.

And even if you could, you wouldn’t.

You smile and he responds in kind, the effort almost breaking him.  The situation he finds himself in seems inconceivable to someone whose actions and character have the same determinant elegance, the same straightforward nature as his long passes.

You sit next to him and rest your head on his shoulder.  The room is full of noise, a loud audience chatting away the intermission, waiting for the bell to ring. Amid the discussions of current events, exchange of stats and transfer rumours, and the drunk sobbing of ‘You’ll never walk alone’, you two seem to be engulfed in some sort of atemporal bubble.

 He’s so much braver. You wouldn’t have lasted this long but he’s still watching Stevie telling Fernando some stupid anecdote. By the number of glasses on the nearby table you can tell he passed the line from stoic to downright masochistic about 3 Old Fashioneds ago.

 You take his hand in yours and after a while he starts drawing lazy circles on your skin. Just like Stevie used to do, tracing agonizing patterns from the inside of your hand to your wrist and back again, making your blood boil, boil, boil. The wave of pain that hits you has an almost foreign quality; as if it is more natural for you to worry about this dreadful dance going on between your husband and his lover than about the persistent sense of longing you’ve been carrying around for months and months. 

You suppose things are simpler from afar. More inside the lines, more chronologically explainable

 More explainable in general.

Xabi missed a match, Stevie pretended to understand. He didn’t, not really; he took it personally and really now, how the bloody hell could he take it otherwise. He _was_ Liverpool FC. He was their captain and their legend and their mascot and their tea lady and their designated drunk driver. And Xabi knew. He knew and he still chose to be with his wife setting aside the match, the team, the game. The captain.

If only it was just his captain he was carelessly setting aside.. But, no, Steven wasn’t just his captain, he was something else, too. Something undefined, unlabelled and completely untranslatable from that language that consisted of perfect passes, secret smiles and aching limbs.

 Oh, they had time to decide exactly what they were to each other but you suppose they used it in far more pleasurable ways than flicking through the Merriam-Webster dictionary in search for the right word.

(In love, that’s what they were; too bad they never bothered asking you)

Undefined, unlabelled, untranslatable were all jolly good with Stevie, but not unimportant. Never that. Two can play that game, he probably thought.

Too bad Xabi only became aware of the game when he saw Stevie flying into Nando’s arms goal after goal, match after match, victory after victory. He probably found himself hoping for a draw, or even a loss. You certainly did. It’s not something you are particularly proud of; you want Stevie to be happy and good God winning has that effect of him, but you just wished Torres weren’t such an important factor in it.

To be fair, you can see that Fernando is a little uncomfortable with all the attention he has been receiving from the captain; even now he is fidgeting, throwing glances at you and Xabi every chance he gets, knowing that he shouldn’t be that close to Stevie, knowing he is just a pawn in an elaborate game with no rules and too many players and yet.. And yet he stays.

You almost feel sorry for him, but you’re all maxed out on sympathy for Spanish men.

It was the one next to you who took the game to a whole new level; perhaps suggesting to break things off, to go their separate ways. After all they both had families they ought to take care of, children that required a lot of attention, wives who were still stubbornly in love with them..

And Stevie ignored the fact the he was the one to first suggest something like that, right after your wedding (you know because on the few times he was alone on your honeymoon he looked as if he were at a very expensive funeral), ignored the fact that he had been jumping on the new striker every chance he got, ignored the rational part of his brain that urged him to talk things over, ignored the irrational part that wanted to slam Xabi against one of the lockers and make him change his mind one angry, desperate kiss at a time. He ignored them all and just focused on the only apparent constant of this game.

Pain.

It really shocks you that your husband can be such a cruel, calculated man but you suppose love will do that to anybody.

On the other side of the room, Steven’s fingers graze Fernando’s neck; Fernando’s cheeks brighten.  Xabi stops breathing.  Arbeloa yells for another round, Carra yells, the world keeps going round and round and round.

You marvel at this uncontainable power to hurt the ones you love.

You squeeze his hand in what you hope is a reassuring way. Words are too cruel to be used between the two of you and not just because of his slurred ‘r’-s or your thick Scouse accent. _Cheer up, hon. I may have his girls and Fernando may have his victories but you..You have.._

He has.. Well, you don’t know exactly what he has; it’s more of what he is. This game has never been about possession; possession doesn’t guarantee anything. It’s more about belonging and being.

Just being for ever and ever.

He disrupts your thoughts, turning to you with a remarkable determination, considering the number of glasses he downed.

‘Alex’ You sit a little straighter, listening to him. 

Each of his words sounds like a wrecked ship.

Each of his words is also in a language even stranger than Spanish.

How very lovely it must be to have this this last and most natural bastion of privacy.

You nod into his shoulder and he resumes tracing lazy circles on your skin. A bit clumsy; like a stand in.

You marvel at this uncontainable power to hurt the ones you love.

And what hurts the most is that you’re only collateral damage. 


	7. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Roald Dahl is spinning in his grave.

‘So, what did you think?’, his voice is rough over the phone.

‘I don’t know, Xabi, they were good, some were great even, but maybe they shouldn’t write on the back cover how very unpredictable the stories are and how masterfully the twists are executed. It takes away from them, knowing there’s something about to happen that you’re not expecting to happen but you know will happen because you read the bloody back cover.’

‘Alex, the book is called _Tales of the Unexpected.._ ’

‘Well, yes. That’s quite a predictable title, don’t you think? ’

You hear him sigh on the other line.

It’s not the usual half exasperated, half amused sigh.

‘What is it?’

Surely, he can’t be pissed because you weren’t sufficiently impressed by Dahl’s ‘startling twists’. It was you who chose the book. It can’t be like the time he didn’t talk to you for a week because you said Fitzgerald was over the top.

‘I’m leaving.’

Now _that’s_ a twist, Roald Dahl be spinning in his grave!

‘Leaving where?’, it’d be difficult to tell from your tone if you’re playing dumb or if you’re just very mature and composed.

‘I don’t know.. I don’t know if I am, I don’t know if I should. I just..’ He sounds exhausted.

The season hasn’t started yet.

The sense of relief that comes from knowing it isn’t your place to say anything quickly dissolves.

‘My favourite was _The Way Up to Heaven._ ’

You hear your words travel the space, reaching him and then lingering around the kitchen table, drowning in his black coffee. You’ve never gone fishing but you imagine this is how it feels like. 

‘Alex-’

‘Don’t.’

_Gareth is shit, okay. And that’s not just coming from me, I heard Carra talking. And he wasn’t yelling so it must count for something._

‘I liked _Mrs Bixby and the Colonel’s Coat_ ’, he offers meekly.

_You on a bad day are still better than him on bloody Felix Felicis._

‘Did you know he always wrote in pencil on yellow paper? And that he was a fighter pilot in WW2?

_Don’t go._

‘No. No, I didn’t, but it sounds like you did your homework. We talked about your virtual stalking, Alex..’

‘Googling and _cyber_ stalking are hardly the same thing. And just for that I won’t tell you which James Bond movie he wrote. ’

The conversation is too dismembered to bother with excuses before you hang up. 

For the next twenty eight minutes you sit very upright. Stare at your watch. Tighten at every sound.

And then Stevie slides the key into the lock, mechanically turns his wrist once, twice, three times and pushes the door open. The girls squeal and jump into his arms; well Lilly does, Lexie just clings onto his legs and he’s laughing, spinning them around and proclaiming that uncle Jamie could learn a thing or two from their tackles.

 He leaves them in front of the telly with hushed promises of sweets, enters the kitchen, kisses you, comfortably, and starts banging the drawers, looking for something.

‘Alex?’

‘Yes, what?’

‘I asked if there’s any coffee left. Are you alright?’

‘Yes. Yes, I think there must be some left.’

Some more banging and then: ‘I’ll just have some tea.’

You don’t bother pointing him to the coffee maker which is right in front of him.

‘God, my mum’s new boyfriend is a real ponce, don’t know what the hell she sees in him. He introduced himself using his middle name for fuck’s sake. So I go: there’s no need for formalities, I’ll just call you dad. You should have seen the look on my mum’s face, her vein started pulsating and all.’

He sounds oddly pleased with himself as he pours hot water into the mugs and recounts his antics, grinning like an idiot.

It hits you around the third time he’s wondering if the poor man is wearing a toupee or not.

He doesn’t know.

‘I’m telling you, nobody’s hair stays so still. It looked like a dead squirrel.’

He doesn’t know.

‘More unnatural than whatever you had going on at our wedding’

That bloody bastard didn’t tell him.

‘Oi, Alex, are you alright?’

‘Yes, I was just thinking it’s a bit ironic, you insulting someone over their hairstyle.’

‘You _wench_!’ He scowls at you over his cup of tea and your blood starts boiling.

You won’t stand for this. You’re not particularly familiar with the hushed promises that are murmured between exhausted bodies in remote hotel rooms but they surely must include not fucking leaving. It’s _the_ pre-requisite pillow talk, for fuck’s sake.

You invent some stupid excuse about having to see Rachel, grab your car keys and run out the door. Stevie sees right through it but he naturally assumes you gave into your inner compulsion to buy the shoes _and_ the matching bag.

It takes you four tries to start the car because _slowly_ pressing the clutch doesn’t sit right with your murderous intentions.

 That bloody selfish prick, does he expect Steven to find out from a fucking newspaper, preferably The Sun? Does he imagine that they’ll bid their goodbyes and go their way, no hard feelings, we had a good run? What the fuck is he thinking about? Sure, his wife, his son, his bloody family values but if your husband can kiss him good night and kiss you good morning then it can’t bloody hell be so bloody difficult. Sure, the weather sucks (four years of constant rain would drive anyone crazy) and even you can tell Liverpool won’t win the League anytime soon, even if Rafa manages to sign all the twelve apostles, but he can’t just pack his bags and go. He can’t leave you with the ensuing mess, he can’t leave you with Stevie trying to hide it all under the rug and putting on his brave face. He can’t leave you with your husband cracked open and discarded yet again, not making fun of your hair and not sleeping at night, just sitting very still and breathing.

He may have his reasons but fuck if you’ll let him.

By the time you reach the docks you realise that your plan of tying him to some heavy piece of furniture and be done with it suffers from some fundamental and strategic flaws. What if Nagore is there? What if the furniture is already gone? What if all that’s left in the apartment is Xabi, sitting on a box containing all his bow ties and chugging tequila in some self-imposed misery?

What if there’s nothing you can do to change his mind? What if he asks you why would you try to?

You slow down and rest your head on the wheel, leaving a stream of curses exist your mouth.

You know leaving must hurt just as much as being left does but at least there’s the consolation, the stupid, stupid consolation that leaving is the right thing to do.

(Why people choose the right thing over the best thing still baffles you.)

And for fuck’s sake, Stevie won’t have any sort of consolation; he’ll just feel the blame. The blame of lying, the blame of getting into a position where lying was necessary, the blame of hating him for choosing his perfect Spanish family, the blame of not hating him at all.

Xabi will probably try to rationalize it, sitting on his box of bow ties and finishing off that tequila bottle.

 _This can only end in heartbreak._ Well, of course, most likely. No arguing there. So why the fuck end it? Sure, this place they’re in right now is not terribly comfortable but you’ve spent your life wearing mostly uncomfortable things so.. yeah..

You breath and breath and dial his number.

‘Don’t go.’

He chuckles on the other side. It must be the tequila.

‘Called to tell me that leaving is a bad idea.. that here I’ll never walk alone? ’

_No. Called to tell you that if you leave, I’ll make personally sure you’ll never walk again._

You breath.

‘No..Just..That’s no way to say goodbye.’ You smile. Despite your accent and your still burning blood, you’ve almost nailed Cohen’s tone. Reproachful yet warm and slightly resigned but fighting with kindness or something like that.

You hear him smile over the phone and you choose to believe it’s not so full of sorrow. Maybe he now has his tongue between his teeth preparing some cheeky answer involving him leaking to the Daily Mirror the fact that Sacha Baron Cohen is not the only Cohen you’ve heard of.

‘Oh , and Xabi.. You Only Live Twice.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jexNsBjz1r8 eh, who am i kidding. Nobody can even come close to his tone.  
> If you are not familiar with Alex's hairdo at their wedding (you are lucky) http://25.media.tumblr.com/e8998d4dabae44732fa8300d50c32938/tumblr_mnmitbChFz1qcbfodo5_250.jpg  
> And Roald really was a baddass and a sweetheart. Case in point http://25.media.tumblr.com/d1f786de33aeb30f62595f5d2484d082/tumblr_mns04orYnM1r60h5mo1_500.jpg 
> 
> By now you've realised I don't know how to make those things clickable. Sorry.


	8. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Alex shortly contemplates swinging

When you see them return both of your eyebrows shot up, which is an extremely rare occurrence. The last time this happened was when you heard rumours that Leigh Lezark dyed her hair a different shade of black.  You are grateful for your very wag-ish sunglasses that cover half your face and mask your reaction. They look like schoolboys that have just pulled an elaborate prank like blowing up the principal’s office or stealing all the stop signs on a 2 mile radius. Xabi smiles looking at his feet and Stevie’s hair is still damp from the shower he took six hour ago.

But for fuck’s sake, they are not school children. These are their wives purposely ignoring the fact that the town is less than half an hour away. Those are their children making sandcastles and running around screaming their lungs off.

Still, you don’t find it in yourself to be angry. Hell, you haven’t seen Stevie so carefree in years and Xabi tries hard to contain himself but he’s almost skipping as he comes towards you.

You know they didn't intend for something to happen when they left to buy one thing or another five hours ago. Your heart warms as you see they are not caring any bags because even if they are, by most definitions- (by all definitions)-cheating, they are never lying. You remember when Stevie asked how you felt about going to Spain on holiday, maybe meeting with Xabi and Nagore for old time’s sake. You felt like sitting him down and patiently explaining that just because for the last couple of years there have only been late phone calls and short texts doesn’t mean that he and Xabi belong in the past. You’d want to explain that yes, most wounds heal but their love is no wound. It may hurt and sting and bleed and feel as if someone stabbed them repeatedly with a bread knife but their love is no wound.

Love.

It’s probably the sun and the sea and all those cocktails you’ve been knocking down but you feel so much love around you. You all love each other. In different ways, yes, but just as sincere, just as painful, just as right. You remember how you and Stevie got together. The switch, they called it. You ending up with Ellison’s boyfriend and she ending up with whoever you were dating back then.

Maybe it’s worth another shot, you think and then promptly crack up into your glass. There’s not much desire there, unfortunately. The logistics of it baffle you and you’d probably never stop laughing.  Plus, the only reason you’d want to get into Nagore’s bed is because it’s close to her wardrobe.

Your line of thought is interrupted when Stevie comes over and kisses you. His smile rests on the corner of your mouth.

You want to warn him that the season starts in three weeks; that they’ll have to go back to late phone calls and short texts, that the distance will be just as hindering, the opportunities just as scarce.

Instead, you warn them about sun burns and throw a bottle of sun screen in the general direction of Stevie’s head. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> According to wikipedia: Curran and Steven Gerrard have been a couple since 2002.Prior to her relationship with Gerrard, Curran was dating businessman Tony Richardson, while Gerrard was dating Jennifer Ellison. At some point in 2002, Curran and Ellison switched lovers; The Guardian wrote, "who stole whom off whom is still the subject of some debate'.


	9. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Stevie has an away game. Also known as the one I wrote because there might be half a line somewhere in the future referring to it.

You don’t need The Daily Mail telling you that Stevie wants a son. You know that from his expression of absolute joy when he’s playing footie with Jamie’s boy, from the way his brow furrows studying all kinds of toys (cars, trains, soldiers, helicopters, guns) until you finally snap- ‘’Just bloody bleeding buy it already!’’, from his excitement when Xabi calls to announce that Jon made his first steps (Stevie almost enrolled him in the Academy then and there), from the grin he tries to hide when he sees kids wearing his kit, from the way your heart aches and aches and aches.

It’s not that he doesn’t love the girls. God, no! He adores them, spoiling them rotten, making sure they will grow to be the absolute daddy’s girls. (You try to look bothered.)

He just desperately wants a boy with whom to share that moment just before the ball hits the net or the smell of grass after rain, the right time to change gear, the best hangover remedy, and the terror of asking a girl out for the first time. And you want to give that to him, especially now, with the transfers and the rumours, the losses and _the_ loss, the draws and the frustrations, the fact that he already considers himself an old man, the stupid talks about his legacy, the mesmerizing chants of Anfield.

He never said anything and you never answered his unspoken question.

The doctor was so kind, explaining all the medical terms as you kept on starring at his god-awful shoes. He looked truly sympathetic; he too wanted Stevie G to have a son that would win England its first World Cup in oh so many years. But, apparently the chances of that happening are slim and here if you look at this graphic it oh so clearly explains the rate of this and that and oh just look at the percentage of women affected and how very fortunate that you already have children and please call at any time, in strict confidence of course.

 Of course.

 You go through the motions for a couple of days, smiling at the right times and preparing  lunch boxes, feeling cold, so goddamn cold, watching La Liga, re-runs of Cinderella, cursing the English weather and waiting. Finally, Stevie has an away game and you promise to watch and he laughs and it gets a little warmer, but then he’s leaving and you can tell he wants to ask you something but he settles for holding you a little longer and you are numbed by the force of his arms and you almost ask him to stay but good God why doesn’t he go already?

You take the girls to your mother’s, drive back home, meticulously close all the doors and crawl into bed. You stop blinking and your pillow gets drenched so you take his and your body is shaking but at least it’s not from cold anymore. And you drown further and further under the covers, your body tight, your breaths raw. You try to think about your beautiful girls whom you love to the moon and back and for whom Stevie would never set foot inside a football field again. But your mind is dark and numb and the whole exercise is pointless. Your body keeps shaking, cold and wretched, under the shrine of the covers. You try to hold on to the fact that you have a husband who loves you and who was once in love with you, but the effort makes your heart hurt. And your heart already hurts because there’s this animalistic pain that springs from it and hits the bedside lamp, and the book you haven’t quite finished and your vanity mirror, refelcting on the French windows and on other shiny surfaces only to plunge deep within again.

Your body keeps shaking until the alarm goes off. You move to sit on the edge of the bed, dangling your feet, the alarm still ringing, your toes not quite reaching the floor. Your face feels like dried wax and you don’t want to _evereverever_ put your feet on the ground.

_But if you leave now you might have time for coffee._

So you get dressed to pick up the girls. You have your coffee (caramel machiatto, one extra shot of espresso). You read a re-cap of yesterday’s match (not understanding a thing but the result).  You prepare lunch boxes and watch La Liga and re-runs of Cinderella and sometimes  you don’t feel like _evereverever_ touching the ground again.

You don’t tell Stevie.

 What’s the point?

You tell yourself it’s to spare him the trouble.

You tell yourself a lot of things.

Yes, there are days you wish he knew, days in which you long for the little gestures that would rise from his knowing. But you also wish you were a Hollywood actress in the 30s or a professional baker.

The bottom line is you really, really, really don’t need The Daily Mail wondering on three full pages whether England’s Captain will ever get his son.

You consider writing them a letter. Just to put them out of their misery. 


	10. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we find out how Karim Benzema came into the possession of one of his two furniture items. The rug remains a mystery.

You cover Stevie with a blanket and let him sleep on the couch where he was watching a match in La Segunda División. His mobile is on the nearby table and you ponder for a moment.

You know that snooping through his phone is yet another low, but.. the moral high ground gets lonely after some time. And you only ever do it so rarely.

‘ _It didn’t take you this long to score for us._ ’

‘ _He’s a fool._ ’

 ‘ _Nice dancing._ ’

‘ _I think Cris wants to take me shopping.’_

_‘ And Ricky to convert me._ ’

‘ _Aren’t you already Catholic?_ ’

‘ _What is so alluring about even numbers anyway?_ ’

‘ _Ramos sure has high hopes._ ’

‘ _I bought Karim a table, it was getting ridiculous._ ’

‘ _Sterling has a new girlfriend. God help me._ ’

‘ _It’s like TOWIE in here. Don’t try. I know you watch it._ ’

‘ _Told you he was a mouthful._ ’

‘ _Bite me.’_

‘ _Tell Carra he’ll make the grumpiest, loudest, most obnoxious fan the Kop has ever seen._ ’

You didn’t know there were so many ways to say I miss you.

You stare some more at the phone. You shrug. Self-control never had much authority over you.

You check his inbox but it’s only Gratty bugging him about golf lessons and Jaime with ideas for next year’s tactics.

You check the outbox.

‘ _Congrats, mate!_ ’

You remember a phone call a couple of weeks ago when Xabi was so drunk he couldn’t tell his address to the cab driver. He kept going on and on about a small, victorious war that he’ll love, of course he’ll love, but..

You look back at your husband.

How much does resignation hurt?

Like, on a scale from one to Athens

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short, victorious war is almost guaranteed to get leaders a second term. Unless it goes horribly wrong. 
> 
> Karim's lack of furniture is well documented, not only by his selfies, but also by Jean-Michel Aulas, president of Olympique Lyonnais, who said: “I saw him in Madrid and he lives alone, in a house without furniture.”
> 
> The legend says Sterling single-handedly (ok, wrong choice of words) augmented Liverpool's birth rate. 
> 
> Nagore really is pregnant. (The two are probably nor related)
> 
> And Stevie really watches TOWIE. (Or so claimed Alex in some interview)


	11. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Alex descends into some sort of hysteria. Which generally means shorter sentences that make less sense.

It was only natural for your carefully planned getaway to transform into him getting the hell away from you.  Clandestine encounters with clandestine lovers make for much more interesting getaways than conjugal patching and too much tanning. So when he told you something about an urgent FA meeting you just nodded. No surprise. Just the right amount of pain. Nothing out of the ordinary.

You were just looking through the room service menu when Nagore called to ask about some dress that Lexie wore and now Ane desperately wants. As you are racking your brains for the name of the shop you hear someone talking in the background. You know that voice; you are used to hearing it speak a little more roughly, taking more time in finding the right words, but there’s really no way to go around it.

‘Is that Xabi?’ You want to be sure. You need to be absolutely, completely, irrevocably sure. And anyway. It can’t be. It would make no sense.

‘Yes.’ No sense at all. ‘Do you want to talk to him?’

Your mind is suddenly aflame. Xabi is in Madrid, with Nagore, probably reading his newspaper and drinking black coffee. Or maybe it’s a two sugar spoons and cream kind of day. Or maybe tea, Fujian White (you know because Stevie still keeps a box behind his Cheerios ) (You know because he’s supposed to be having tea with your husband). No, it’s too late for that, and too early for lunch. Maybe he’s getting ready to go out, take the dogs for a walk, watch old people play chess, listen to an obscure band, wear pastel colours and make them look manly.

 God.

Focus.

Fuck.

Xabi’s in Madrid.

But you know there is no FA meeting.

‘Alex?’

‘Yes. No. Just tell him I said hi.’ You sit down and pour yourself a drink.

‘How’s Stevie?’

Dead.

‘Alex?’

‘Ted Baker.’

‘What?’

‘The dress’

‘Ah, si, thank you, Ane will be thrilled, she had been nagging me about it for weeks,  I think it’s about a boy but, you know, they don’t tell us anything-’

‘That I know’, you drown the glass and pour yourself another.

‘Alex, are you-’

‘I have to go, promised Stevie I’d meet him by the pool sometime this year ’, your voice is still as chirpy as possible and you even get through the laughing goodbyes and the promises to call when you have the time, the have-fun-on-your-holiday- kiss-everyone-for-me dance.

You hang up the phone and pour yourself another drink. Slowly. You are not in a hurry. It’s not like you have somewhere to go. Ever.

Plus you want to prolong the journey to the obvious conclusion. You know the FA meeting is in two weeks because Struan called to remind Stevie. An hour after he had already left.

You know he is not seeing someone else and anyway, if he were, he wouldn’t even be cheating on you so why bother with that. There’s really no point to it, especially because you know for certain he is not with someone else. You know he would never do that to him; you know he might want to, might even try to because of some sadistic pleasure. But not like this, not a planned trip, not a passable excuse, not a pre-packed bag. If he were to cheat on him, it would be some sad, drunk, dark groping and a few messy kisses that tasted of desperation. Then hastily pressing 14 on his speed dial to spread the all-consuming ache because he would want immediate absolution, because he’d hurt, because he’d want to hurt, because he’d want to assure himself he still could, because the guilt would be ripping him and because misery loves company.

Oh yes, misery loves company so it actually baffles you why he’d left. You realize now that, for the first time in a long time, this is about you and him. About how he just couldn’t resist spending a whole week with you, about how he’d rather be alone. Alone. The man who has Gratty following him like a puppy, the man who goes bat shit crazy if left on his own for an hour, the man who tries to decipher Carra even when he’s three-shits-to-the-wind-drunk because he just needs someone to talk to all.the.bloody.time.

Alone.

Sure, you think, as you pour yet another drink. Everybody needs solace, everybody needs solitude, everybody needs to be alone from time to time. Yes. Perfectly normal.  And just because he isn’t with you it doesn’t mean he's alone. It just means he’d rather be anywhere but here.

The alcohol dulls your senses. You heart is heavy with a very unfortunate combination of fury and sadness that makes you want to break everything in sight without actually moving a finger.  So you drink. And drink some more until, eventually, anger wins over.

White hot anger.

You search for the tightest, shortest dress you own and that’s a real challenge considering all the dresses you own are short and tight, barely on the right side of the obscene. Your moves are mechanical at best; you know how to play the blonde bombshell to perfection. Louboutins, make up, pout, eyelash flutter, pout some more, nauseating perfume, too much eye-shadow.   You exit the apartment and press the lift button compulsively. It’s surprising you actually reach the dimly lit bar in your high heels. With all you’ve been drinking it would be an achievement if you could walk barefooted, but you suppose determination somehow trumps alcohol in the great scheme of things.

You order a Black Martini and wait. It’s a wonder, but the fact that Stevie hasn’t touched you in God knows how long did little to affect your self-esteem. You have no doubt in your mind that someone will come, offer to buy you a drink and talk your ear off about his investment plan or something just as tedious; a stupid way to make you want to go back to his room considering you would anyway.  You’ll laugh at the right times and smile and drink and perhaps by the end of the night you’ll feel less angry and more miserable.

And you’re right. Somebody does come and it all starts with an ‘Is this seat taken?’ and continues with two bottles of Veuve Clicquot. You knew it would be easy because who wouldn’t try making a pass at Stevie G’s wife? That’s one to tell your friends over a pint or two. _Not only is he not scoring on the pitch, but almost everyone and their father can score with his wife. It’s a real pity she doesn’t take care of the opponents, Liverpool would at least make a draw from time to time. She’s as dumb as she looks, a fair lay though, you’d expect her to just sit there and take it but-_

 _‘_ Are you seeing anyone? _’_

 _Are you fucking kidding me?_ You are really in no mood to play this game and fuck if you will. It’s insulting, not to your position or status, you’re not that vain, but to the part in you that finds it extremely difficult to sit here and drink champagne and laugh and smile and nod and look the part. You are just preparing to storm off as quickly as your shoes would let you when you spare him a glance (probably the second that night). He does look rather foreign.  Which is normal because you are in a foreign country, in which even if they knew the English captain they would have no reason to distinguish his wife from any other too tanned, too blonde, too drunk woman.

‘Where are you from?’

‘Milan’- _That’s right funny, that is._

Silence.

 ‘I’m not seeing anyone.’

You somehow end up in your room, not his. It’s not about doing it on the bed you and Stevie slept in; your room was just on a lower floor and you really couldn’t stand that bloody lift and who the fuck really fucking cares anyway.

 He’s talking about one thing or another but his accent helps you block any sort of information.

His accent and the whiskey you are just finishing.

You wonder where Stevie is right now. What he is doing. When you knew he was with Xabi you were capable of putting two and two together and let it go but now you are actually wondering. Are there any matches to be watched? Or is he simply drinking in a no name bar pretending he’s not the Liverpool captain? Better yet, is he pretending he is not the Liverpool legend, or that he is not your husband? It’s just so fucking messed up. You know he loves him but he loves you too, right? Right? You are at least friends. You are. You really, really are. People think you just bat your eyelashes and look pretty but you understand him. You’ve learned him. You’ve loved him for so long.

And he won’t even ask for a bloody divorce, just a prolonged vacation.

The bottle is now empty and the man is pulling you up and yes, you remember what is supposed to happen next, thank you very much.  But he’s not Stevie, he doesn’t smell like him, he doesn’t feel like him, he doesn’t make you laugh (not that you’d be paying attention), he doesn’t  hold your hand the right way, he isn’t your-

But Steven isn’t here and he doesn’t want you. This man (whatever his name may be) wants you. And it feels good. Not right, but-

He opens a door and you’re surprised to find yourself in the bathroom. Surely a comfortable bed would be a much better idea. Come on, really- it’s bad enough you are going to sleep with him but contemplating how exactly to explain that you are not into any sort of water sports is simply too much. He gets the water running in the bathtub and the noise is deafening, you feel as if you were in a crowed airport.

The man comes closer to you and moves his thumbs languidly over your cheeks.  He gently releases your hair from its clasp, careful, so careful, you heart breaks with every strand and you feel completely immobile. To be fair, that’s nothing out of the ordinary, things always happened _to_ you. Well, yes, you are usually more active in this part of your life.. But you can’t move.

 He is good looking, younger than you initially thought because of his smart suit and his boring talk. He’s probably your age and you can’t understand how someone your age can look so young. His hands are working the front buttons of your dress and his knuckles brush against your chest. You smile. Or at least try to. His fingers travel to the nape of your neck and then lower with a tantalizing drive hands until they unzip your dress. It falls with a surprising ease considering the effort you made to put it on.

He kisses you like one would kiss an old sweetheart. Quickly, but in no hurry, only the tiniest corner of your mouth caught by his lips. He leaves saying something about how you should take a bath and drink water, maybe eat something. You don’t understand. Is he asking you to dinner?

 Doors close.

The water keeps running.

Eventually you make your way into the bath and breath. Your fingers get all plumy. You face already wet.

You hope when you actually cheat on Stevie it won’t be quite so disastrous. You might actually ask him for some pointers. 

But playing the scorned wife is useless. Too complicated a part.

You’d just really want to be kissed like that again, though. 


	12. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Pepe wears something like [this .](https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRsez9dgO3AR-qS8L4w9JWAwxHw2FJvqhjlUNDlqQOXf1Vg5HxL)

It hurts in the back of your teeth and in the knuckles of your fingers, in the small of your back and in the lines of your eyes. Because, yes, there are lines; none that could rival his but still.

You are old now. Older than you should be but there’s this dull weight that drags you down and burns and bites and itches and rips and scratches and tramples and stabs and does all sorts of nasty things to your everything.

To put it simply, the pretty things have lost their shine.

It all comes down to this in the end, doesn’t it? Loving your husband doesn’t make you less of a gold digger. Loving your husband doesn’t make you less of a foul-mouthed, quarter-illiterate, twitter-brawling idiot, loving your husband doesn’t make you less of an attention seeking whore, loving your husband doesn’t make him love you back, loving your husband doesn’t make you into someone your girls could admire.

 Loving your husband does very little compared to what you thought love could do.

You could have been someone your children would be proud of, maybe, but that ship has sailed and sunk and your only redeeming quality remains this stubborn love and an ass that won’t quit. And while it does hurt that your children shouldn’t admire you, that’s something you made peace with a long time ago. What’s new is the obviousness of them not needing you.

And without those strings and without the excitement of all the pretty, shiny things you could own at a simple snap of the fingers, all you are left with is yourself. And that simply won’t do.

Because when alone there are about a thousand maybes you can ponder. 

Maybe..Maybe it wasn’t love or duty or affection of friendship or your children that kept him here all those years.

And as soon as the thought crosses your mind it makes so much sense it’s like a law of nature. _Water boils at 100 degrees, water boils at 100 degrees, water boils at 100 degrees_. You feel like yelling and banging your fists against his chest, kicking and screaming and crying. _Is this is it then? You think they’ll stop loving you when they hear you’ve been screwing Alonso in the locker rooms? I haven’t, I fucking haven’t! Why the fuck should they!?_

Instead you lock yourself in the bathroom and burry your cries in his towel.

Maybe you’re even grateful for them. Maybe you’re so used to sharing that all this grace you’ve attributing yourself for letting him go again and again, maybe all this grace is nothing but a natural consequence of always having to battle a whole city for his attention.

You feel like ringing him up in the dead of night and whisper till you hear his heart breaking over the other line _you think he loves you and maybe he does but he loves them a thousand times more, he is theirs like he will never be yours. You’d be a fool to think otherwise. They’ll build him statues and sing him odes, name his children after him and get drunk in his honour.    And how could you_ ever _compare to that?_

You wonder how long before Stevie’s resignation turn into resentment.

And the lines get deeper.

You try to fight it. You run and run and run and welcome the ache in your muscles and the emptiness of hunger.

You stop wearing your wedding ring because it slips down your finger. The papers have a field day with that.

Xabi sends you a cooking book. You don’t open it. You are behind with the books anyway as you can only read a couple of inches a day.

And it hurts so ferociously good.

Until it hurts a bit too much.

‘It’s sprained not broken, but you did good to call me. Keep an ice pack on it until the swelling goes down.’

_Sprained, not broken. Sprained. Not broken._

‘I’ll come see you again in a couple of days. You may need to wear a brace and use clutches if walking gets too painful.’

_Oh doc, but what’s the fun if not pressing on the bruises?_

‘Your husband knows what to do. He had enough of these along the years, eh? ’

The doctor slaps him animatedly on the back and suggests a hearty dinner.

Stevie glances at you.

Late in the night he kneels on the bed and starts massaging your ankle.

‘That good?’

You feel like crying.

It does but the pain is just commuting.

His hand is inching higher and higher.

‘Don’t. Please..’

Which makes little sense considering you didn’t tell him you can’t have any more children so he’d keep trying, right?

He drapes kisses along your hairline and you don’t cry.

You start drinking and betting against them. Vindictive little trophy wife. You make good money, though.

It’s difficult to fall asleep and it’s even more difficult to wake up.

‘You should do something about those headaches of yours’, Pepe looks at you over the grill. He’s wearing an apron with a design of women’s lingerie. Not that you would take him seriously otherwise.

_It’s not headaches, it’s one headache. And it’s not the headache it’s the vodka._

Turns out it’s not the vodka either. You need reading glasses.

The shock.

The horror.

And you envy him. You actually envy him.  You too wanted the tragic love story.

_Oh, yes, I close my eyes and you fall asleep; my hands are crushed under the weight of not holding yours etc etc._

For all this tangled mess you might at least have a good and proper love story. But everywhere you look you just see theirs.

_“And one by one the nights between our separated cities are joined to the night that unites us.”_

_Oi, Xabi, it’s me you’ve sent the book to.._

You’re scared of what he’ll do with all this time.  You’re scared he might _see_ you and you’re scared he won’t see himself anymore.

He comes behind you and fastens the zipper of your dress. He leaves small, firm kisses where the silk meets the skin.

And you crave.

You look at the two of you in the mirror and take his hand in yours. You lean into him just so you’d feel his strength.

_Will you be alright?_

Everyone and their mother is at the dinner.  No, seriously, even Paula Carragher is here.

People come over every two bites to talk to him. You play with your food.

He holds a speech.You can’t hear a word. You know he has a paper clip in his hand that he bends and twists. The girls look at him like they could never look at you.

Breathing becomes too difficult a task. Especially in that dress. 

You turn around and take small, unsteady steps on the hotel’s plush carpet. You need to get to a bathroom.  Or whatever else closed, quiet, dark space. 

Your steps get faster and faster. 

You open the door and recoil at the sight of four old hags trying to fix their wigs and take the lipstick off their teeth or whatever. You don’t know what to do. Your master plan stopped here. You just need a moment.

‘Get out!’

You turn around. Daniel Agger, ladies and gentlemen, a man of many words.

The hags hurry muttering about people these days. And they didn’t even get to see his tattoos.

You step inside and he closes the door behind you.

‘Take your time.’

Two more steps and you fall, crying on the cold tiles.

When you exit, he’s still there, guarding the door, all cheekbones.

‘Walk with me for a bit.’

‘Aye, aye captain.’ You nudge his shoulder. He just looks pained.

You walk around until he looks less worried, until it’s _remember that time I went to cry in the bathroom because someone had a similar dress._ Nothing else.

You smoke a cigarette and it gives you such pleasure it could very well be your last. You have a retort about his saviour complex prepared in case he asks anyhthing. He doesn't, though. And the silence is not only as comfortable as a warm bed on a cold morning, it's also so very kind. 

You start walking again. He’s chewing his lip, wrinkling his forehead. You decide to throw him one; you owe him after all.

‘You’ll do good.’

‘I need to do a hell lot more than that to follow him.’

Three more steps and: ‘You really think?’

‘Eh, what do I know about football?’, you bump into him playfully.

‘Alex..’

‘Oh, come on. _His tattoo proved he was a Red/He elbowed Torres in the head/He plays through wind, he plays through rain/He loves the club, the greatest Dane_ ’

‘That just makes me sound like a giant dog’, he pouts leading you back to your table.

‘Whoof whoof!’ Stevie looks up at you and tries not to laugh at Daniel’s face.

You sit back next to him and rest your head on his shoulder. He nudges his chair closer to yours. Warmth spreads within you like wildfires in Australia.

‘You alright?’

‘Yes.’

For all the worry you felt when you saw him flying into tackles on the pitch, for all the away nights, for all the choruses of ' _T_ _he baby's not yours_ ', for all the draws and the last minute losses, you still never wished for this day.

He turns and kisses you on the forehead.

You steel his dessert.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Carra said that his mother came to Anfield just [once](http://http://metro.co.uk/2010/09/03/jamie-carragher-mums-the-word-at-testimonial-3435879/) before his testimonial. She also made an appearance this year for his last game. So, when Paula Carragher is showing up something of colossal magnitude is happening. Like Stevie retiring. 
> 
> 'And one by one the nights between our separated cities are joined to the night that unites us' comes from a poem by Pablo Neruda. 
> 
> 'The baby's not yours' is just a very, very low chant Stevie had to put up with. Without breaking anyone's face. 
> 
> Sorry for the cheap drama. Almost done with it. 
> 
> Agger will be captain. Don't even try telling me otherwise. And the Great Dane is the cutest breed of dog ever. If cute is the word to describe something that can weigh up to 90 kg. 
> 
> Alex does have the habit of getting into fights on Twitter, especially when people comment on the number of holidays she goes on or her spelling, but she also posts things like [this](https://twitter.com/AlexGerrard7/status/347327769945989120/photo/1) so it's all good.


	13. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Alex starts living on borrowed time. And this becomes AU-ish. But I suppose it was that from the start. At least until they decide to make it public or whatever.

You are woken up by the grating buzzing of your mobile.  You glance at the still dark sky and hastily get out of bed. Stevie’s already burying his face in his pillow, almost groaning at the sound, as if he wasn’t snoring his ass off just five minutes earlier.

 The clock shows 7:43. On a weekend.  Someone better be dead. Cold-stone-blue-buried-dead.

You tut half-heartedly when you see Stevie hogging the entire blanket in your wake, bite back _remember when you were preaching to me about waking up early, love?_  close the door behind you and look at your still ringing phone. 

+349

Oh..

So this is it.

Unless _this_ is just a very annoying form of telemarketing.

You’d have liked to have more time to memorize every detail of what you’re wearing and how well the carpet matches the wallpaper and how Lou has yet again left her toys in the hallway and how cold your feet feel, especially with a Lego piece now stuck in your left one. To have more time weighing in all the possible scenarios, to pull at different straws..

 You press the green button.

A short break and then:

 ‘I’m filing for divorce.’

You shrug.

She’s filing for divorce. 

Nagore’s voice sounds surprisingly well rested.. Must be the time difference. Are they one hour ahead or two?

Ookay. So she’s filing for divorce.

_Hello, good morning, how are you…. No? Okay._

Okay.

What do you say in these circumstances?  Congratulations? You feel you should know this kind of stuff, you are English after all. And despite allegations that you hit a girl in the face with a bottle of vodka you are quite polite.  Polite in the sense that you can’t help but notice the irony of receiving what you assume to be a courtesy call at seven in the morning.

‘I thought you should know.’

‘Thank you.’

‘It’s alright.’

You want to ask if _she_ is alright. Not so much for her sake but for yours. To be fair though, you aren’t very worried. It’s almost amusing in a way.

_Darling, it doesn’t have to be quite so tragic. We all fall in love sometime. And please don’t be so blunt, they’ve worked really hard at keeping all of this a secret._

You really are in a very good mood. Unexplainably so.

You sit down on the stairs still clutching the phone.  You don’t want to say goodbye. It’s always such a miserable chore. And yes you too have some darker days. And you had some very dark months. But still, you never called when you could have texted. Not that you don’t appreciate it.

Especially because you and Nagore were never really friends. She was a bit intimidating, as if she could start hurling random quotes at you at any time. She was too warm, too at ease, too much, too well informed on the situation of countries you had never heard of. And she had this heavy edge around her, like an anchor; once she took a decision it was all good and done for.  Which explains why you feel strangely resigned.  It would make perfect sense for her to be the one pulling the final string that holds this together. From the four of you she seems the most concerned with notions such as personal dignity. The other two nailed the honour, the self-sacrifice, the resigned tragedy of it, the wishful _in another life, eh.._ while not quite looking at each other.

And here you are, way too amused for this hour, for this particular information, but really now, Stevie is a Memberof the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, Xabi studied bloody engineering in his youth (which you've been told requires quite a lot of math), Nagore turned out to be some marketing genius and they didn’t see this coming?

 ‘It’s alright’

You nod half-heartedly and dumbly wish her good night.

You get back into your bedroom and gaze at Stevie sprawled all over the bed snoring softly. You push down whatever feelings may threaten to spill all over the immaculate duvet. You swallow it all because this is really not the time; way too early in the morning for an earthquake of revelations that could leave you on the bathroom floor breathing out of a paper bag. Because seeing  (okay, more like glimpsing ) it coming doesn’t mean _that_ much in the end.

_I’m sorry to hear that_ \- that’s what you should have said.

But you’re not. Not really. You are many things, sorry isn’t the first thing that comes to mind.

You crawl back into bed and bury your face in Stevie’s shoulder relishing the warmth of his body. He lazily circles your waist with his arm as you will yourself to go back to sleep.

His fingers start drawing all kind of constellations on the small of your back.

‘Who was it?’

You smile into his neck and leisurely kiss your way up to that spot behind his ear.

‘It’s a surprise’

‘What surprise?’

You snuggle even closer and breathe him in. Earth and scorching sun and thunderstorms and waves and fallen trees and home.

‘The confetti and clowns kind.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Xabi studied [Engineering](http://unamadridista.wordpress.com/2013/02/25/xabi-alonso-at-vanity-fair/) before switching to Business and doing three years of that. Stevie was awarded  
> [a MBE](http://www.hellomagazine.com/imagenes/news-in-pics/2007/03/21/steven-gerrard-pic.jpg). Alex looked proud. 
> 
> The 'we all fall in love sometimes' comes from [this](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYGZ4M-dXls)


	14. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Alex is kind of done with living on borrowed time.

There are things you promised yourself you wouldn’t do. Things like not fucking drinking ever again, (not if it’s free, not if it’s right there, not if you’re thirsty after all the dancing, not even if it’s champagne), not wearing a lace jumpsuit and thinking it’s a good idea (three years, two months, five days),  not googling yourself more than twice a week, not playing poker with Carra, not telling Stevie that you know _,_ not adding your daughters on Facebook, not buying lottery tickets, not trying another detox diet, not hitting Stevie when he starts snoring and pretend he woke up on his own, not going on the Outnet after 10 pm (or when drunk, angry, bored, sad, nervous, ecstatic or hungry) not calling your mum when you know she is out of the house, not lying at the Marks &Spencer’s  self-checkout when asked if you used any of their bags, not stealing Lilly’s shoes, not adding huge amounts of spicy condiments on your plate to make sure Stevie doesn’t nick your food, not doing your make-up while driving, not keeping lists of all the things you shouldn’t do, the usual.. 

So yeah, there are a lot of things you've promised yourself you wouldn’t do.

And it’s a fucking chore.

Especially when you have to wait for others to do them.

Ever since Nagore’s phone call, you’ve been seeing omens everywhere; every time Stevie opens his mouth to ask you to pass the remote, to yell there’s no toilet paper left or to nag you about Lexi’s hemline you freeze. (He recently started dropping things in your vicinity to make sure you haven’t gone deaf.)

You haven’t.

You’ve just swallowed a thousand iron pebbles that weigh you down. You also have some sort of spring inside you that won’t let you rest. It’s terribly uncomfortable.

But you’ve promised yourself you won’t call his bluff. He must show his cards. He must. You won’t pack his suitcase, prepare him a lunch bag, kiss his temples and tell him _it’s alright, darling it’s all good, I know, I ve known for some time, here’s your plane ticket, I couldn’t find an aisle seat, but it’s a short flight, and do call when you arrive, yes?_

You won’t. This must come from him. Like a child’s first words; not forced, or rushed or bribed or under the influence of one too many beers.

The problem is Stevie is tactless. Not exactly insensitive but you have this fear he might not bring it up in the dead of the night, behind closed _and_ locked doors; he might just let you know in Waitrose when you’re fighting over what kind of cereal to buy, or casually at one of Pepe’s barbeques. He might write you a short text on his way to the club or ask Carra to tell you. Hell, maybe he won’t even bother Jamie, he’ll just make one of the young players do it, _that was a shit tackle, for fuck’s sake, he was nowhere near the ball and your team had freaking possession, run 10 extra laps! oh, and after you’re done, pass by my house and tell my wife I’m leaving her!_

Of course, this is a bit ridiculous. You know this can’t be easy for him. Whoever said leaving is easy clearly never tried packing. And he must be so.. so many things.

But he really doesn’t have his way with words. And neither do you. You’re afraid he might blurt it, you’re afraid you might blurt it, you’re afraid Lourdes might announce it around the dinner table, you’re afraid you might die of old age and weak heart before he does.

It sometimes looks as if all the energy had been released when he found out Xabi got divorced. It was mid-morning and you were sitting on the sofa, legs stretched in his lap, the girls bickering upstairs, air humming with rain, the newspaper shared between the two of you (Stevie having the sports section and you the food and gossip ones).

_He throws the pages on the coffee table muttering something about ‘those bloody Mancs’ and turns to you._

_His fingers still on your ankle._

_‘Alex, pass me the last page, will you.’_

_His voice is a little bit strained, especially in retrospect, but you’re absorbed in this fascinating article relating how Kate Middleton may or may not have gained five pounds so you pass him the column without looking._

_Is the dress really that unflattering? Is it just a bad photo? Is she pregnant? Is it none of our business? So many questions._

_He crumples the page and by the time you lower your newspaper he had banged the front door with no words spared._

_You look at the discarded column and you suddenly feel like banging a couple of doors yourself._

_The agent of Xabi Alonso (38) released a statement announcing his client had indeed divorced his wife of 11 years, Nagore Aranburu (39). Rumours started flying earlier this month in the Spanish press when the former Reds player was seen exciting the Sheraton Hotel on numerous occasions, rising speculations he had moved from the house they shared in Salamanca, one of the most expensive Madrid areas. A source close to the couple declared their separation was amiable as they intend to share custody of their three children._

_Oh.._

_Oh fuck._

_You hurry to the window._

_Your first reaction is to thank God he didn’t ask if you knew.  You hate yourself for it but hey, what’s a treacherous heart compared to a treacherous husband._

_Stevie stands unmoved on the lawn as if he can’t quite remember why he left the living room or where he was planning on going or in what direction the world spins. He probably wouldn’t look surprised if you told him the world is flat and rests upon the shoulders of a great turtle._

_Actually, he looks as if he just realized it’s ‘turtles all the way down’._

_You feel this urge to go to him, cover his body with yours, rest your lips against the back of his neck.._

_He takes his phone out._

_Your hand freezes on the door handle._

_You can’t hear his words but you can imagine his bitter_ _‘were you ever going to tell me?’ just as well as you can imagine Xabi’s soft ‘_ _Stevie..’ on the other line. You can almost hear Xabi’s speech, how yes, of course he was going to tell him, he just didn’t want him to think he was to blame. Between him and Nagore, things haven’t been..they haven’t been bad, but they haven’t been right either . And he wanted to tell him; he wanted to tell him when he and Nagore had to split their album collection, when Jon refused to sit down at dinner with either of them, when Ane asked when he would be back, when Jon answered coldly he wouldn’t, when Luca just crawled into his lap.. When he drank the minibar’s entire content , when he woke up with a raging hangover on the floor of an empty hotel room..He wanted to tell him, God he wanted- needed- to tell him but he couldn’t find the words to assure him he was in no way responsible, the words that held absolutely no coercive connotation, the words that were constructed in such a way as to assure Stevie that the worst thing of all was that he had to borrow some clothes from Alvaro (‘I’ve never seen Carlota so happy as when she deposited a dozen Dolce &Gabbana t-shirts into my hands’).  _

_Stevie blinks twice; passes his hand through his hair, mumbles something into the phone before putting it back in his trousers and climbing into his car._

_He’ll be back in the dead of night, smelling of cheap whiskey drank in cheap places where nobody bothers him with conversation. He’ll rest his head in the nook between your neck and your shoulder and you’ll feel the flutter of his eyelashes against your skin._

_And then nothing._

Freaking, fucking, nothing.

Quantum-mechanical, sub-zero temperatures, no electro-magnetical fields vacuum.

You wait. People talk about the calm before the storm but you’ve lived in Liverpool long enough to know that’s a lie; or a metaphor, depends how you look at it.  There is no calm before the storm; just a smaller storm; the wind a little lazier, the rain less hurried, the thunders less threatening.

The world doesn’t stop just because there’s a storm coming. You still have to find Lou a Red Riding Hood costume in less than twelve hour (‘ _Dear God, couldn’t you tell me sooner?’ ,’Don’t make a fuss over it, she can wear one of my old kits!’, ‘. . .?!’, ‘They’re red, aren’t they?’_ ), you still have gossip sessions with Lilly, sometimes interrupted by Steven (‘ _So, there’s this boy-’, ‘He’s not a gangster, is he?’_ You wonder if he’ll _ever_ let that one go. ‘ _It’s okay, dear, she didn’t inherit my_ _horrendous taste in men._ ’, ‘ _Oh, that hurt, I am wounded, I am. Do you really want advice from such a nasty person when your wonderful, fantastic, caring father is right here?_ ’), you still have Downton Abbey marathons with Lexie (‘ _Mary is such a bitch._ ’, ’ _Lexie!_ ’, ‘ _Well, she is, isn’t she?_ ’), you still run every morning, you still gorge on chocolate when everybody went to bed, you still pretend you’re allergic to dogs, you still fall asleep lulled by the soft snores of your husband.

The air is more static and Stevie washes his hands even more compulsively but there’s no silence.

You imagine that for him it’s like learning a whole new language. You’ve once read that it takes a month just to get used to another alphabet.

It’s already been a month.

And you know saying goodbyes is not something he’s unfamiliar with.

They said goodbye with every kick of the ball, with every unread text, with every misread gesture.  They said goodbye with every kiss and after every airplane ride, after lunches and after friendly car rides; after sleepless nights in cracking beds. With every ghostly touch, with every hollow laugh, with burnt paella and turned down pages in heavy books. 

They said goodbye like they didn’t say I love you, so they kept saying it, like a broken machine in an amusement park.

You two, though, you two were never ones for goodbyes.  It was ‘see you’ and ‘be home before dinner’ and ‘depends on what you’re cooking; ‘don’t forget to TiVo Top Gear’, ‘do you want something from Podgorica?’, ‘from where?’, ‘I can’t find my bloody socks’, ‘bring me chocolate’, ‘I love you’, ‘good luck’, ‘really now, where the fuck are my socks?’

No goodbyes.

But this storm.. It’s fucking drenching you to the bone.

Come on, Stevie. Do something. Improvise.

_You remember Alonso, right? Great on the ball, his long pass accuracy is bloody legendary (that goal against Newcastle.. Jesus), instinctive knowledge of the game; a true Red, bounces right back (remember the penalty in Istanbul?).. Yeah, we’ve been.. you know.. for quite some time now.. and he just got a divorce so I’m thinking what the hell.._

Okay, better not improvise. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Turtles all the way down" - I've just quoted Stephen Hawking in fanfiction. Achievement Unlocked. 
> 
> Luca seems like a popular name for footballers' children. Don't really know. I'll change it in 6 months or whatever. I don't think it will be Mikel though, that would be too confusing.
> 
> Tony Richardson (Alex's ex) was 'jailed for his part in gangland sword attack on boxer' (just quoted the Daily Mail but with a title like that I just couldn't help myself). I imagine Stevie making fun of that from time to time. (All the time).
> 
> I also imagine Carra coaching the youth team and Stevie just going to give his input from time to time. (All the time).
> 
> Stevie's obsession for washing his hands is well [documented (1:45)](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7HqORg_lk8)
> 
> If Alvaro's collection of graphic T-shirt keeps expending with time I'm guessing Carlota will use any opportunity to get rid of some of them.


	15. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Alex is really done with living on borrowed time.

You can’t sleep. He has yet again taken the entire duvet. The kick you give him is almost involuntary.

‘Alex, what the hell?’

‘Wake up and get dressed’

‘Are you insane?’ He delves even deeper under the covers. You take his pillow. He grunts.

Lovely, lovely routine.

‘Get dressed.’

‘Why?’

‘Just... Please.’

Maybe it’s one of those moments when he instinctively knows he should do what you tell him.

Maybe he’s too tired to argue.

You end up in the car. He’s wearing boxers, a t-shirt and flip flops. You’re wearing your bathrobe. There are less than 10 degrees outside. You drive and he falls back asleep, but not before mubmling something about how he's very keen on dying in his own bed so why go through all this trouble. 

You wake him up when you arrive at Anfield. He looks around confused.

‘What are we doing here?’

‘You’ll see. Come on.’

'Shit time you chose for a private tour.'

You pass him the keys and he leads you to the stands, through the players entrance. He automatically touches the 'This is Anfield sign' and you see him sit a little straighter, breath with a bit more commitment. You sit down close together and try to get as much body heat as possible.

‘Ok, so what are we doing here?’

‘I know.’

‘Care to enlighten me then?’

‘I _know._ ’

He stops breathing for a moment.

‘I know, but I still need you to tell me.’

The Kop end has never been so silent.

‘I.. I don’t know how.’

‘I’m not asking for details, Stevie.’ You bury your face in his neck for warmth. Two lifetimes after, he starts speaking.

‘We thought it was football, y’know.. the.. connection. He just knew where to send the ball.. I felt like I could run to the end of the world and he’d still be a step ahead of me.. 

You snuggle even closer to him. It must be quite a sight: Liverpool’s legend, in underwear and flip flop, and his wife, wearing a bathrobe, sitting in the stands on a Tuesday at three thirty a.m.

'..It took us an embarrassing amount of time to realise it wasn’t just football’, he lets out something between a sigh and a chuckle. 

‘When he broke his ankle, God, I could have killed Lamps... I just wanted him on the pitch with me.. and in the locker room to make fun of whatever tantrum Carra was throwing. I wanted him back in the cafeteria where he’d complain about the food, and in the car where he’d fuck up my radio. I wanted him back at the pub with the other lads, going on about one thing or another in that bloody accent, I wanted to celebrate with him after a goal and carry myself like he did after a loss.’

You link your fingers with his.

‘And then he came back and I still wanted him.’

He turns to you with eyes shining, as if he were on the pitch.

‘God, Alex, we tried.. we tried so hard.. I kept telling myself and telling myself.. he moved to another freaking country..we-’

‘I know.’

You rest your head on his shoulder. The cold is starting to bite.

‘When I’m with him, I don’t need to be here to be.. I don’t know.. I can't...You deserve that, too.’

You kick him in the shin. Hard.

‘Stop doing this, Stevie! For fuck’s sake! Stop rationalizing everything in some twisted way that can make you everyone’s hero. I don’t need you to be a hero. You want to be happy and sometimes happiness comes at someone else’s expense. It’s like this for us mortals. You wanted to go to Chelsea because you wanted the bloody medals not because you thought Liverpool could use the money off you. You’re leaving me because you’ve been in love with someone else for most of your adult life-and I’m using adult quite loosely- not because you want me to go find my Prince Charming.’

‘I’m sorry.’

He looks down at his feet.

‘It’s okay. I told you, I don’t need you to be a hero.’

You sit bundled together in the stands until you are threatened with frostbite.

Eventually, you make your way back to the parking lot while making fun of the noise his flip flops make on the wet ground.

You get in the car and turn the heater on. He drives. When you get home you run up the stairs like children and jump into bed, covering yourselves with all the blankets in sight. You’re still shivering.

He takes your hands in his. You roll closer. He looks younger, so much younger. Maybe that disastrous attempt at Botox is wearing off. He kisses your wrist and the back of your hand. He looks at you and you smile lazily. He flattens his palm on your stomach and starts kissing your neck. His lips are still cold but they burn and bite and bruise all over you skin. You play with the hairs at the back of his neck. He kisses your eyelids with such reverence you almost placate him with some pathetic joke. But he shallows your words and unties your bathrobe. 

You shiver.

For hours.

And he keeps you in his arms long after you stop shivering.

Days pass by without anything happening. Inertia is a wonderful thing.

You see him going through the motions. Sitting on the edge of the bed, looking at his hands and overthinking so much he’s giving you a headache.

He turns to you looking so much like a lost dog you feel like rubbing his tummy and taking him to the docks to chase seagulls. 

‘What if it won't-?’

‘It will.’

‘What if he-?’

‘He does.’

‘Jesus, Alex, how can I ever-?’

‘You can’t.’

He starts laughing then and you go closer to him. He rests his hands on the small of your back and looks up at you. So very bright.

You try to smooth those frown lines with your fingers.

‘Just.. don’t make me leave you.’

It all just falls into place from there. The girls react as well as can be expected. Especially Lilly who remembers all sorts of sweets Xabi used to give her. They understand they should keep the secret and they know you won’t be living together anymore but they are too caught up in promises of Spain to worry. They are loved and they love as unconditionally as only children do.

The most difficult part about your actual divorce is deciding what to wear. Especially because the other part is signing a piece of paper.

You’re driving back home from the lawyer’s office, your hands comfortably linked together by the driving stick (divorces are stressful stuff after all) and your breaths even.

‘They say you can’t love two people at the same time.. But for what it’s worth.. every time I saw you walking barefooted in those long, cocktail dresses, when you brushed your hair in the evenings or when you yelled at the telly, when you cheated at Scrabble, when you lectured Lexie about cheating at Scrabble..’

His thumb moves over your knuckles.

You smile and look out the window. A sad smile you hide behind your hand.

‘That’s not what they say, Stevie.’

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've never been to Anfield but I suppose private tours at 3 30 in the morning are quite unrealistic. On the other hand Stevie must have some advantages.


	16. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there's a photographer who should really look for another job or how Alex had to deal with some things she didn't know she got in the divorce.

One glance at the pictures and you can tell with surprising accuracy what happened.

They eventually had to leave the apartment in search for food, but this is Xabi we’re talking about, so what could have been Chinese take away and a couple of beers quickly became a gastronomical guide of San Sebastian.  You can see Xabi trying to drag Stevie in yet another chorizo shop but the Scouser will have none of it. He doesn’t even try to argue on behalf of fish fingers and chips knowing he’ll only earn a scowl and an ‘ _Ah, no Stevie!_ ’, opting instead to distract the Spaniard with a kiss. Just a peck of the lips; you’re sure worse things happened between him and Carra.

Just a peck of the lips and the snap of a camera.

It’s innocuous until stalking Xabi Alonso to fuel the rumours of him becoming the coach of Real Sociedad’s youth team becomes Xabi Alonso holding hands with a man and kissing him in front of Pastelería Otaegui. 

A couple of days later it becomes ‘ _Are you fucking kidding me? That’s not any man. That’s Steven fucking George fucking Gerrard you fucking incompetent!!_ ’. Of course, the photographer will not admit to not knowing who this Steven Gerrard is, just as he won’t admit to following bearded men for hours until realizing they were not Alonso. He’s not very good with neither faces nor names and should probably consider another line of work.

Some phone calls later, the publisher of a local Basque newspaper is able to take his wife on the freaking holiday she’d been nagging him for years _and_ fix the leak in the roof while the editor of La Marca is spiting coffee all over his shirt. It all moves pretty fast from that.

You go around the house drawing the curtains and thanking God the girls are in Spain.  If the past record of The Sun is of any indication, you are in for a treat. You send a couple of texts, turn off your phone and go back to bed.

By the time you wake up, all the journalists in Northern England have set up camp in front of your house and you can’t even pronounce the number of missed calls you have. You answer your mother’s ‘ _Did you know?!??_ ’ with ‘ _Know what?_ ’, you tell Nicola what spices to use for the roast, you chat with the girls and listen to Stevie mumble things that range from injunction to press conference.

You go to the pantry to see if you have enough food until the news dies out. You decide you have enough triple chocolate cookies even if Stevie and Xabi get married wearing matching dresses and take up professional ice-skating.  You decide to start on the biscuits right now, you deserve a treat for not saying ‘ _I bloody well t_ _old you so!_ ’ _'_ in a very smug voice.

Later, in the bath, there’s laughter bubbling in your throat and you get out of the tub and run around your room in search for your phone. Once you find it you get back in the water and call Xabi.

‘Alex? Are you okay?’

‘Yes, yes. Listen, I was thinking, isn’t it funny that between the two of us I will be the one remembered as the beard?’

‘…’

‘Come on! It’s freaking hilarious!’

‘Are you sure you’re all right?’

‘All the care you put into that beard and for nothing.’ You keep on giggling until you almost drop the phone in the tub.

Life goes on amid stupid headlines that either can’t quite grasp the fact that Steven Gerrard’s living in Spain with his partner or are not that surprised considering you are built like a man.

_After almost 20 years with Curran, no wonder he goes for men now._  

Your mother takes you to lunch and while she tries being nice for the entrees and the main course, by the time the dessert arrives you managed to piss her off enough to say what she really means.

‘Well, obviously there was something you weren’t doing, or weren’t doing right.’

‘What, like anal?’

‘For fuck’s sake, Alex, language!’ 

You feel yourself re-becoming a petulant child, as if all these years were just messily erased.

Your friends are no better.  You see no point in trying to look bothered by the fact that your ex-husband is being all gay on the shores of Northern Spain. The weather is rainy as fuck there this time of year.

‘But don’t you find it unnatural?’

‘It’s a hell lot more natural than your hair.’

You suddenly have no friends.                                                                                                                                           

You blast Katy Perry’s ‘I kissed a girl’ when you drive through the sea of paparazzi and laugh your head off when Gratty calls to ask if it’s all for real _‘He never, not once, hit on me. I mean I was right there, y’know?’_. 

You spend your days eating and watching reruns of Made in Chelsea.

You wonder on what side of the bed each of them sleeps.

Pepe stages some sort of intervention and sets you up with his cousin.

You call Xabi to complain.

‘How was it?’

‘He didn’t speak any English.’

You hear some noise over the line and then Stevie’s voice: ‘And? How was it?’

The mob outside your home is becoming tiring. You wished they stopped, especially with the scorned wife bullshit. You don’t have the required wardrobe for that. You decide to throw them a bone.

‘As much as it baffles me to say this, especially about my ex-husband, they are both consenting adults.’ They assume you’ve gone insane after that so just let you be for the most part.

It’s kind of hard to get around town, though. Some people give you nasty looks because Stevie is gay ( you still roll your eyes at that, on behalf of your gay friends who actually know what taupe and oxblood are), some because what kind of low life creature would hold on to someone for that long and some (most of them) by default. And since going out is generally draining, more than anything else, you just stay at home. You are so bored you take up gardening.

He’s so lucky to have never been in between loves.

You call them.

‘Are you two going to get married?’

‘What?’

‘Just saying, this is the third article this week calling you boyfriends. You are too old to be boyfriends, it’s ridiculous.’

‘Are you sure you’re alright? Maybe a holiday-’

‘A holiday from what? But anyway, this boyfriend business is insane. Nagore agrees with me.’

‘You called Nagore?’

‘I was bored.’

‘Alex..’

‘And ‘partners’ makes me think of synchronized swimming.’

But then you become something a bit worse than bored. There’s this article describing in vivid detail, from undisclosed sources, of course, how you told Stevie that if he’ll leave you, especially for Alonso with whom you knew he was having an affair, you’ll make sure he’ll never see his girls again. You start sleeping even more and stop calling them.

They probably don’t even receive that kind of scum anymore. These were your magazines. You imagine they are now subscribed to just about a dozen sports newspapers, The Economist, Jot Down, The International Herald Tribune.. not Closer and Heat.

_Is this why you stayed? Did you really think I’d..?_

You sleep and sleep and you are woken up about a week later by some insistent yelling coming from the kitchen. By the time you find your phone to call the police you realise, with no small amount of dread, that you know those voices. You go downstairs and are met with the sight of Carra and Pepe sipping _your_ coffee and yelling at each other.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘Yolanda and Nic went on holiday. We got hungry.’

‘Right, so what are you doing here? And how did you get in?’

‘Stevie gave me a key in case something happened, we were in some pub in Baltimore or was it Portsmouth? We had just played in the FA Cup-’

‘Neah, it was a league game.’

‘League game my arse, it was in the bloody FA Cup.’

‘When was this again?’

‘Eh, it must have been what, six, seven year ago.’

‘Right.. get out and call before showing up.’

You take their coffee mugs and turn around. You sip from Pepe's cup because you know Carra drinks his black. You wrinkle your nose. Way too much sugar. 

‘Oi, Alex, I was thinking.. how would you feel about letting me have some of the youth team meetings here? You know, for spirit building and stuff.. They need to see something other than the training grounds and this house is big enough. Not to mention they'd piss themselves at seeing Stevie's gameroom. Eh, what d' you say?’

You pour some of Carra's coffee into Pepe's cup and try again. This time it tastes pretty decent. 

‘I won’t even dignify that question with an answer.’

In retrospect, you probably should have.

The next morning your house is full of sixteen year old eating your food and being yelled at by Carra. Pepe just looks amused and finds your stash of chocolate chip cookies.

At first you try to be practical. You call a locksmith and explain your problem. You got divorced and one of your ex-husband's friends still has the key to your house so you’d like the locks changed. When you tell him the property has 23 doors, without taking into account the garage entrance and the swimming pool his voice wavers. When you give him the address he hangs up.

You hide in your bedroom until they leave and hope it was a one off.

It wasn’t.

They are in your house all. the. time. Like bulls in a china shop but with big, wet puppy eyes; constantly bewildered to be in Steven Gerrard’s living room, sit on his sofa and eat pizza leftovers from his very plates.

They are driving you up the wall.

You call Xabi and Stevie and pass through all the stages of suffering.

‘Look, this can’t be real. It’s just not possible for Carra to transform the house into a bloody playground. It just can’t be, right?’

‘Talk to him, get him out of my house, get Pepe out of my pantry, get the bloody kindergarten out of the gameroom, or I swear I’ll fucking set it on fire!’

‘How we about we arrange some days a week when they can come over? I’ll even make sure to be out of their way. Say, two hours on Tuesdays?’

‘Do you even get these voicemails? What’s the bloody point? What’s the bloody point of it all?’

‘Fine. Whatever.. Don’t pick up. Have it your way. I’m not giving up, though.’

You call Daniel and explain the situation.

‘Let me get this straight, you want me to get Carra to stop doing something he’s hell bent on doing while he’s having the assistance of Pepe Reina?’

‘Yes.’

‘You want me to convince Carra to do something that is not in his immediate interest or may even blatantly go against it?’

‘Yes, please.’

‘Alex, I have children.’

‘Daniel-’

‘I was planning on growing old with my wife.’

‘But can’t you like, take them on the first team or something?’

‘I don’t decide these things, it’s the manager, the owners, not me’

Which is why you find yourself dressed to the nines and feeling like the wife of an Italian mobster, having lunch with the president of Liverpool FC.

You overlook the chitchat and get right down to business. You carefully take off your gloves and your sunglasses, cross your legs and look at him behind a fury of eyelashes. You considered wearing a veil but the one you wanted didn’t arrive in time.

‘Get Jamie Carragher out of my house along with the Youth Team and I’ll make you a rich man.’

Ok, wrong choice of words.

‘Get him out-’

‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand.’

‘Get him out’, you repeat, ‘and I’ll make both Stevie and Xabi play together in a testimonial.’

‘Mrs Gerrard, I’m really sorry but I don’t think I can help you.’

You continue unperturbed.

‘I can also offer you twenty Steven Gerrard signed shirts and Xabi Alonso’s first born.’

The man makes a quick move for the check and leaves with an excuse.

Fuck.

Xabi rings you up later.

‘Did you actually offer them Jon?’

‘I called him first, I’m not a monster.’

Your last chance, your biggest chance is, of course, getting the assist of Nicola and Yolanda. But when you see them entering the restaurant looking all radiant and well rested you realise you're screwed. When Nicola confesses that she hasn’t slept so good in ages you just give up altogether.

There’s just one more thing you’ll try.

After an especially long day, when you thought Carra’s head would burst from all the yelling and that Pepe was in serious danger of being maimed to death if the Scouser realised he was pulling faces behind  his back, you decided to try your luck.

You take a bath, put on something with no apparent stains on it and open a bottle of wine.

You sit on the sofa, squeezing yourself between Carra and Pepe. You stretch your long legs languidly before crossing them with all the grace you can muster, drink in hand.

You almost fucking purr.

They look at you, apparently uncomfortable with the expense of skin you decided to bare. 

‘You know boys, this could get very weird.. very fast.’

A look between Pepe and Carra and for a moment you think, this is it, you win.

But no, Pepe rests one of his hands on your knee, his thumb moving up your thigh and Carra just murmurs from the other side.

‘It could.’

You spill wine all over yourself and start screaming at them to get the hell out.

They fall all over the carpet laughing their heads off.

You kind of give up after that, make the players eggs and soldieries and listen to their girls problems. You make them pancakes when you hear Carra yelling more than usual and freshly baked cupcakes after a loss.

The players call you Mrs G.  You tell Xabi and he sends you The Graduate. You send him The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

It’s a bit weird, you think, to be still so close to him and Stevie. But Stevie is your best friend, you couldn't begrudge his falling in love even if you'd channel all your energy into that (which you clearly can't with Carra and Pepe in so close proximity). He's been your friend for the better part of an eternity and something considerbly (and nauseatingly) sweeter before that. You have three daughters together, he'll always be a part of your life, so why bother with short, curt phone calls and awkward drop offs when what you really want to do is spend half an hour yelling at each other about the latest twist in the very embarrassing reality show you both still watch.  And Xabi.. Well, you suppose there's some natural connection between two people who are so intimately acquainted with the notches in Steven's spine. 

As for the other two idiots.. you came to accept that they're doing this to you because they care. Which basically means you are in an abusive relationship with Pepe and Carra but.. it is what it is.

One morning, Daniel comes over and you can swear that some boy fainted from the excitement of passing the ball on the former captain’s lawn with the present skipper and all his cool tattoos.

‘You too? Traitor!’

He smiles only with the corner of his mouth but it’s pointless cause his entire face goes up anyway.

‘Alex, get dressed.’

‘You fucker. I saw you drink at the Cavern Club with Jamie and Pepe.’

‘Get dressed. Please.’

‘No, never. How do you want your eggs?’

‘If you don’t get dressed, the security check will be a lot more interesting than it usually is.’

‘Omlette, then.’

He slides a plane ticket to your side of the table. You put down the spatula.

You look at the plane ticket for a while.

‘Maybe I should call my lawyer. I think I got screwed in the divorce settlement. He gets the whole freaking town?’

‘You got custody of Carra. And your town is bigger. The apartment is already decorated and all.’

‘Uhm..?’

‘Relax. Xabi, not Stevie. Even though I think one of the walls _is_ red.’

You stare at the ticket some more.  You make him an omelette. You kiss his cheek. You change your bathrobe for something more security check friendly. 

You send two messages.

_  
__Fucking twats._

_Thank you._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A beard is a man or woman used as a [cover](http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=beard) for a gay partner. I also liked the 3rd definition from urban dictionary.


	17. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Stevie and Xabi don't appear. At all. (As a fair warning)  
> And Alex meets a guy. (A proper summary for once)

There’s this man. Five o’clock shadow, sharp cheek bones, reading glasses and a general fuck-you-to-hell-and back attitude. You meet him in a club, Jalouse or Dstrkt, you can’t for the life of you remember. They are all the same anyway, the same music, the same ‘dressed to impress’, cosmopolite crowd (as advertised on the site), the same air kisses, the same sugary cocktails, the same loneliness that engulfs you like a cold blanket and makes you spend the whole night in the bathroom, whatsup-ing Lilly.

Yes, they’re all the same, but you still go because it is expected of you and because it gives a purpose to your shopping trips and your extended shoes collection.  It also makes everyone feel better, seeing you on the page 6 of some trashy magazine. Plus, you don’t know how to do anything else and it covers those long hours between dusk and tomorrow.

You are trying very hard to remember whether it’s Friday, Saturday or Tuesday afternoon maybe,  all the while contemplating these hopeful people running around and having an ‘absolute blast, dear, an absolute blast’.

 And then, there’s this man. He doesn’t look as if he’s having any sort of blast. You are watching him, somewhat intrigued, like you would watch a trailer for a new TV series. You were not expecting for him to look back, so you see no reason to look away when he does.

He comes over and no, there’s no silence suddenly falling all over the club; he still has to yell over the lousy remix of a song you actually remember dancing to.

‘Get your bag, we’re leaving.’

You feel the laughter ringing in your throat and you think of about a thousand responses that would make Carra blush and revolve around the general idea of ‘who the fuck do you think you are?’. You remember how you made Stevie chase you around for months, not even granting him with a fake phone number, and this man thinks he can come up to you, with the cheapest line in the book, and actually get his way. Ha bloody ha.

By the time you actually start laughing, you are almost out of the club, bag and all. He gives you a faint smile and you follow him into the bright streets.  You walk for a while and he seems to have absolutely no idea where you’re going.

 You wish he’d say something soon because there’s a limited amount of time you can walk in these shoes and you want to hear his voice in the cold air, not diluted by all those people wearing Jason Wu for Target and thinking they are the next big thing. 

He stops suddenly and you bump into him; he takes your hand in his and leads you across the street through a maze of cars and yelling drivers. The mother in you puffs and wants to point out there’s a crossing not five feet away. The page-6-in-the-trashy-magazine-you is even more appalled when you realize he's dragging you into a McDonald’s.

‘I’ll have a Big Mac, large fries, a Coke, and an apple pie. ’

His voice sounds like whiskey. American. Both the whiskey and the man apparently. 

Both he and the cashier are looking at you expectantly and it’s 4 a.m., you’re wearing 6 inch heels and eating at McDonalds. Fuck Salvador Dali, _this_ is surreal.

‘A happy meal’, he smirks imperceptibly, ‘and wedges, and some sour cream sauce and a Cadbury McFlurry and another portion of large fries.’

After all, this might be all a dream and you don’t want to pass the opportunity to gorge on greasy fries with no repercussions.

‘Are you quite done?’ he asks, still smirking.

You feel like sticking your tongue out at him and maybe making some funny faces behind the cashier’s back (probably because the last time a boy took you out at McDonald’s you really were fifteen), but you don’t.

Instead, you shift your weight from one foot to another studying his profile, the 5 o’clock shadow, the faint lines, the tiredness meeting at his temples. He turns to you and his smirk moulds into a smile; your lips move of their own accord.

‘Hi!’

‘Hello’

‘Hi’

‘Helloooo?!’ the cashier’s dangling two bags in front of your faces and you feel as if you were caught snogging behind the gym by your sixth form teacher.

You take the bags and exit into the fuzzy light. You walk for some time, just lazily putting one foot in front of the other. He’s wolfing down his Big Mac and you eat your ice cream while he mumbles something about how unnatural it is to start your meal with the desert. You think there is way too much familiarity here; you’ve met less than half an hour ago and you find yourself checking his shirt for stains every thirty seconds. But you don't think too much about it; you've learned there can be a scary amount of familiarity even in the seediest of one night stands. 

You ask him what he does for a living and he says he’s a writer.

‘Is there any chance I read something of yours?’

‘It depends, do you read the FT?’ a quick glance at you makes him add ‘You know, The Financial Times.’

‘Sometimes.. the Sunday supplement, the one that describes how rich people should spend their money. It’s highly entertaining when I run out of ideas.’

He laughs and asks what _you_ do for a living. You arch an eyebrow; he looks like a man who knows his football, you’re pretty sure even the FT has a sports section.

‘I’m a writer, too’ you deadpan. ‘I have a monthly column for OK magazine.’

You count the seconds until you both start laughing hysterically.

Once you calm down he glances at you with a ‘but seriously now’ look.

You shrug a bit, ‘I married young.’

‘How’s that working out for you?’

‘It pays the bills.’

The air turns white with morning.

 You stop on a bench and take your shoes off; he’s gonna have to do something truly extraordinary to not make _that_ be the best thing that happened to you all week. 

‘You?’

‘I didn’t marry young.’

‘Did you marry at all?’

‘No.’

You eat in silence at opposite ends of the bench, with the McDonald’s bags between you. He offers you his jacket when you shiver and you shallow ' _I'm from Liverpool, we get summer two hours a year in February. I'm good._ ' You take his jacket and warm up in all these text book gestures that have been tried on tens (you glance at him), okay, hundreds of girls before. 

Because, really now, what's the harm? 

‘I tried once. It didn’t work out.. Can I have some of that sauce?’

You want to ask why exactly it didn’t work out. No, actually you don’t want to ask, you want to know.

He starts throwing fries at the ducks in the nearby pond.  There’s a sense of awkwardness about this whole situation that should weigh on you.

‘Is that why you were in that club?’

‘What? No! I was there because Cirque de Soir was closed.’ He smirks a bit and you roll your eyes.

‘Really? Cirque de soir?’

‘Don’t tell me you don’t like the midget or the clowns wearing baby masks.’

‘He’s not a midget, he’s a goblin. And anyway it’s the fire swallowers that do me in.’

‘Still better than the bouncer lady at Maddox.’

You nod rapidly with the straw from your drink still in your mouth: ‘I knoooow, what the hell crawled up her ass and died?’

‘I have a friend who tried to date her.’

‘Noooo. You’re shitting me. Why would anyone try to do that?’

‘I suppose he liked a challenge.’

The ducks are fighting over the fries and you tilt your head to look at him; he’s fidgeting with the wrappers and smiling at you. You suppose this is the right time to tell him that when you are not looking bored in London clubs you have three children, an ex-husband, a two person book club, and half of Liverpool’s youth team in your living room at any given time.

It’s gotten a bit stupid lately to just assume people know.

‘Do _you_ like a challenge?’

He turns to you, looking baffling earnest. ’I like you.’

You bite back any answers that involve telling him that he doesn’t know you or that it’s a stupid thing to say after so little time or that it’s a stupid thing to say if you’re not twelve and spending the whole recess staring at this one girl.

You also bite your lip and let your hair fall in your face for good measure.

Suddenly, one of the ducks is making all sorts of noises and you realize that it probably chocked on one of the fries and this is bad, this is really, really bad, but you can’t stop laughing. He’s sitting next to you howling, with tears in his eyes, saying ‘I killed a duck, I fucking killed a duck’ over and over.

Eventually, the duck spits half a fry at your feet and you crack up again, falling into each other.

He takes you home and while the taxi is whooshing through the London streets you inch closer and closer with every bump and every traffic light. He takes your hand in his on St. Audrey Place and you start playing with his collar on Chesterfield Street. He moves his fingers through your hair and starts untangling the knots at the base of your neck, you brush his cheeks with your knuckles and he rests his lips against your wrist on Court Lane.

You kiss at the intersection between Princess Gardens and Exhibition Road.  It’s just a simple kiss; it should definitely not make you this giddy, especially at your age. If a kiss has this kind of power over you than you should really talk to Stevie about restricting Lilly’s curfew.  Five thirty in the evening sounds reasonable. Five on a school night.

The driver starts coughing and muttering at Victoria Corner.

He asks if you can meet for breakfast some time and you nod as you turn the key in its lock. You don’t actually expect to see him again because you’ve learnt not to expect anything but bad weather and besides, you don’t even know his name. Plus, if he has you figured out as the kind of woman who is up before noon, then there’s something wrong with his head.

You crawl into bed and mindlessly count how long before the girls come over. You miss them more than you ought to. 

Not that London's night life is not entertaining. It could be, if you could somehow gather the necessery energy to be shocked or vaguely excited about all the weird shit happening. But you're a couple of years late to this party.

And here it only rains less. 

You fall asleep in the middle of the bed, drooling on the pillows. 

Twelve hours later, you’re eating croissants and drinking orange juice, watching the sun set. He asks how you drink your coffee and studying some very complicate looking machine that you've been told made coffee. You’re wondering if the two of you will ever do things the proper way.


	18. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there's a double date.

_Twelve hours later, you’re eating croissants and drinking orange juice, watching the sun set. He asks how you drink your coffee and you’re wondering if the two of you will ever do things the proper way._

It turns out you do. You actually go through all that jazz of fancy dinners and pretending you like the same things, of late-night phone calls that start with the most ridiculous pretences and leaving stuff over at his place. And it’s frighteningly easy.

You spend whole nights talking and it’s surprising how the words keep spilling over the white sheets with no pre-existing script. He tells you about his father who is trying to become an alcoholic but hates the taste, while leaving kisses all over your ribs. About his mother who thought her duty as the wife of a university professor was to sleep with his brightest and most promising students. (He’s also very keen on finding your most ticklish spots). He talks about his older sister and you can tell he hates her guts by the way his fingers press on your hip and by the ‘I fucking hate her guts!’ mumbled into your neck.

 He also tells you about how a lifetime ago he fell in love with a girl, Southern Belle and all that (you puff and call him a drama queen for his choice of words, ‘ _No, no, her name was actually Belle’_ ). He bought her a big, flashy ring with the money he received as an advance for a book, after publishing a couple of short stories.

 The girl took the ring and married her second cousin.

He then decided that numbers are better than words and that Texan girls are the lousiest bitches in the whole wide world. (‘ _Maybe she didn’t like your stories’, ‘I have other talents’, ‘Maybe she didn’t like those either’, ‘Are you sure you don’t have any Texan roots?’_ )

You tell him about Stevie and about your girls and about Xabi and Liverpool and that one time you Carra got so drunk you managed to convince him he was next in line to the throne. He never presses so all your prompts go away as you lay in the darkness talking.

You start stealing his shirts and he always uses all the warm water. Autumn turns into winter and winter into that miserable season Londoners call spring solely due to conventions. He keeps you awake for nights to an end before deadlines and if you never hear anything about exchange currencies or the situation in the Middle East, it still won’t be enough to erase the trauma.

The two of you meet with Stevie and Xabi for a late dinner and by all the rules imposed by simple, common sense it should be beyond awkward. It goes good, thou. Your shell fish is drowned in butter and you don’t even want to think about the sexual favours Xabi promised Stevie in exchange for his behaving, but it goes good. You and Stevie manage to ignore any talk about the emerging markets, the football chatter doesn’t cover up too much of the time once James sheepishly admits he’s just a casual supporter of Arsenal and says soccer twice in a minute and when you come back from the bathroom it doesn’t look like any punches were thrown around. By the time dessert comes (both you and Xabi ordering 3 separate ones, ‘ _They have really small portions!_ ’) you irrationally think they have no right to be quite so friendly. Come on, not even some ridiculous question about his intentions regarding you or some other shit. You feel insulated.

Almost as a consolation, Stevie shakes his hand a little too hard when you leave.

Some time later it’s your turn to have the girls and if you thought they were spoilt before, you were thoroughly mistaken. You try to explain that no, they don’t need another set of Guitar Hero and Lexie does not need drums and Lilly most definitely doesn’t need a car. When you come home to find them using a Givenchy dress to construct a fort you realize you are now in charge of four children.

You resign yourself to never sleeping.

There are days when he and Lilly seem locked into ‘who is the most sarcastic-bitter-arrogant human being’ contest as they blast their music so loud walls vibrate, dogs start barking and old, deaf neighbours tut when they see you. Days when he and Lexie try to cook and you actually consider changing apartments because of the ensuing chaos. He’ll make up the most elaborate bed time stories for Lourdes and when _you_ try to read her something she gives you an ‘ _At least you try_ ’ look.

He starts writing again; short pieces for GQ , Paris Review and The New Yorker. He gives them to you and you act uninterested. He asks what you think.(‘ _It’s Hemingway meets Hugh Hefner_ ’, ‘ _You sound jealous_ ’, ‘ _You sound busy in dimly lit clubs’ , ‘You_ are _jealous_ ’). They’re good and you know.

Months pass and he murmurs in the soft place where your neck meets your shoulder.( _‘That night, in the club, I didn’t think you’d actually come with me’)_. 

You kiss his temples slowly and scratch his back in an arching moan.

_I didn’t think you’d come, I’m sorry. I didn’t thinkyou’dcome I’m sorryIdidn’tthink i’m sorryi’m sorryi’m sorry._

Struan calls you when you’re helping Lourdes with her Math homework over Skype.  He’s still in charge of all the Gerrard related PR fuck-ups and he sounds so tired on the other line you almost suggest it’s not too late to change his line of work. 

He tells you how, well, there’s this book coming out and uhm, it’s written by a.. well.. it’s written by a good friend of yours and the subject.. well, it’s rumoured to be about this woman whose husband is kind of, you know..

You hang up the phone still thinking about Lou’s homework. Four times twelve, three times fifteen, six times nine, if you flip a coin 12 times, what is the best prediction possible for the number of times it will land on heads, the difference of two numbers is 3, their sum is 21, what are the two numbers?

You start packing his things. Sweaters and shirts and jackets that all look exactly the same; stashes of books, and pens with no caps, coffee mugs all over the place, the reading glasses he thought he lost and accused you of stealing (‘ _Just go to the bloody doctors and give me back my glasses_ ’, ‘ _I have no idea what you’re talking about, I see perfectly fine_ ’), CDs that are never in the right case, packets of Marlboro Red stashed in the most ridiculous of places, about ten different perfumes, the gramophone he bought on a whim, the entire Tarantino collection, the Cartier-Bresson photograph you never agreed where to hang, a thousand coffee types, the stupid armband that monitors your heart rate when you run..

You’re exhausted.

You send the boxes to his former flat, for which he may or may not still pay the rent. You instruct the doorman to ask for his key and not let him come up when he arrives from New York where he was ‘visiting his mother’.

You open a bottle of Champagne and congratulate yourself that this time you haven’t made your life revolve around a man. Except the obvious parts, there’s also the plant you have to water twice every week, the TV show you watch on your own (because he thinks it’s mind-blowingly dumb), the tea place around the corner, the pilates class, the shoe department at Harrods-

Half way through the bottle you realize it’s a Dom 1999. His favourite. You almost expect it to taste like betrayal or something but that would hardly deterr you from finishing it anyway.

Stevie calls you after a few days, a stupid attempt at being considerate. You are not in the mood, to say the least. Nor do you have the patience.

‘Alex, I’ve heard.. I’m-’

‘Oh, shut up already! How long have you known? ’

‘How long have _you_ known?’ 

And here’s the famous Scouse temper, you think, airily detached.

‘Dammit. Alex, I’m sorry, I didn’t-’

‘Fuck off, Steven!’

You start sleeping in the guest room because you can’t stand the lingering smell. You think it’s time you packed your things too.

But avoiding phone calls and staying in bed not moving fills up your entire waking hours.

It shouldn’t be quite so.. distressing. People get together and break up, smash things, shout, write books about it.. Sometimes, you think that just writing your accent should be punishment enough. Sometimes your ribcage hollows.

You try cancelling the subscription to The Wall Street Journal (‘ _I have to keep up with the enemy_ ’). They tell you that only the person who signed the contract is in power to do so. You yell at them for about 15 minutes. Daily.

You still can’t get out of bed and you’re still wearing one of his shirts. You’ve almost finished his whiskey collection.

Xabi sends you the book a couple of weeks later and it dawns on you, with sudden clarity, that you’ve never hated him before.

The obviously red letters stare mockingly at you.

 James Wildon.

 The Other.

The title makes you think of a B-rated movie about aliens.

You put the copy next to the one the doorman sheepishly brought up and the one Struan sent as soon as he could get his hands on it.

You’d have appreciated getting the script before the bloody dress rehearsals but.. it is what it is. 

You start packing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I kind of transformed this into How To Lose a Guy in Ten Days. But I guess it couldn't be that simple.


	19. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which I jump the shark.

 

You travel for a while.

It’s light. Dizzy with sun, sand permanently stuck to your skin, you general existence drenched in champagne.

You date an assemble of men who are either too young, too old, or in possession of too small yachts. Some are smart, some are funny and some are kind. You tend to avoid the latter.

They all have a thing for your legs, though.

In the end it’s just a different kind of loneliness.

Different kind of headlines.

An emptiness you can’t even try to fill with money.

An emptiness that comes when yachts move to the other hemispheres.

You are bored. You never did learn to be by yourself. Nobody told you that your best friend would be your ex-husband. That all your other friends would turn out to be back stabbing whores or halfway around the world or backstabbing whores halfway around the world. Nobody told you Xabi would use all his influence to get you admitted in one of his _very important business, older than hell, men only_ cooking societies. (Nobody told you Basque men would be quite so possessive of their recipes. Or that you would come to answer when someone calls you- in a very slurred manner- Julia Child.) Nobody told you Carra would stay on the phone for thirty minutes while you talk about the latest Elie Saab couture collection. Nobody mentioned you would be so untroubled by how much of a charity case you have become. Vacationing in San Sebastian, eating your weight in pastries, laughing yourself silly when Stevie tries to say something in Spanish, rolling your eyes with Xabi when Stevie yet again recounts the fact that he took eight bloody years of Spanish in primary school, thank you very much, winking at Xabi before they go to indulge in some crash courses.. Being ridiculously okay with it all.

Mostly because the alternative is an empty London flat that absolutely reeks of old books, lemon cheesecake and strong coffee. Which makes little sense considering you changed apartments. And filling the days is such a chore when you don’t have the girls. You spend hours and hours thinking of what you could possibly do. You can’t just take advantage of their pool (and eyeing their pool boy) forever. There’s this voice in your head telling you this is weird, but how can it be weird when it’s so comfortable?

You feel like telling the entire world that yes, you can be friends with an ex, especially if his new home is 5 minutes away from the beach and his..partner? boyfriend (?)(get married already!) cooks the most divine swordfish.

You can be friends with your ex if friends is what you’ve been for a long time. And if you really can’t be bothered with feelings such as awkwardness.

But you are bored. And you will have to go back to being chased by photographers in some very ironic be careful what you wish for fable. With nothing more to fill the days than a very serious commitment to not quitting smoking.

Fashion is out of the question. You are no Victoria Beckham, and you are very proud of yourself for realising this.

You could bread horses and take them to shows and contests. Wear knee high boots and preppy shirts.

Or go to university.

Take ballet lessons? Learn Russian? Make your own vodka? Write a children’s book?

Give up and never wear anything but pyjamas ?

Before you leave, Xabi tells you one of his old teammates gave him tickets to a bullfight and asks if you want to go.

You nod.

‘You did promise me after all.’

You drive for a couple of hours and he tries very hard not to say something. Which makes him talk uninterrupted all the way.

The fight is colour and movement, dancing and death rushing through the stands in an electric feel. 

A beautifully choreographed, slightly gruesome, death. 

There’s noise and vibrant silence and you hold your breath for the last blow.

On the way back you insist to drive. You initially find it funny how horrified Xabi looks at that. He reminds you every five minutes on what side of the road you should stay on and he seems ready to jump and take hold of the steering wheel in case you decide to drive off a cliff.

You take a turn with a bit more force than necessary and you almost feel insulted at how he’s holding on to everything in sight and mumbling about how this won’t be a ‘majestic death’.

‘God! You’re worse than Jon. Do you even have a license?’

‘Did you know that bulls don’t care much for colours? They can only see blue and yellow. Not red.. It’s movement that makes them angry.’

‘And suddenly becoming still what kills them.’

‘Oh, come on.’

You keep on driving and he becomes slightly more relaxed, even when you change lanes, by mistake, on an empty street. He even shrugs in a very resigned manner. Nothing like a bullfight to make you accept the inevitability of death.

It’s dark when you park the car and throw him the keys.

‘Just a few pages, Alex, I-’

‘No.’

You don’t look at him as you make your way into the house. You have to pack and say goodbye to the girls and make sure Jon didn’t steal any of your cigarettes.

You have to go back home. You have to learn to live with yourself, with nothing but making cupcakes, watching bad TV and reading mystery novels to occupy your time.

You have a running bet with yourself on how long it will take you to go insane. How long before you read every book under the sun, except one.  How long before you wake up and discover you have thousands of cans of cat food and no cats. How long before Derek and Meredith get back together?

It hits your around the time you’re eating the third batch from that day.

Cupcakes! Of course.

It’s a swirl of activity from there. You delve into the project with the sheer desperation the possibility of eating cat food gives you. Or the excitement of having something of your own. Of course, you make no illusion people will come for the food; they will come for Steven Gerrard and because they will wonder whether this will appear in the movie, because yes, there are talks about a movie. 

 But it’s better than staying up on internet forums and seeing people writing whole dissertations on the importance of using British actors if the characters are British.

And the smell of cheesecake just won’t go away; you ask your neighbours if they’re the ones cooking it and they look at you as if you were bat shit crazy, suggesting they did something themselves.

Everyone tells you it’s stupid, that cupcakes are passé. It’s éclairs now, Madame Gerrard. There were cupcakes, then there were macaroons and now éclairs.

You don’t know how to make éclairs. You call Stevie.

‘Fuck ‘em. Your cupcakes have.. personality.’  He insists on investing in the business. A testament of just how sad people think you are. You call the shop C-Cups. In memory of another present he gave you.

The newspapers go wild with the knowledge that you are never free from your ex-wife.

Shock.

Horror.

You feel like a child whose parents are way too indulgent.

You have to look for chairs and chandeliers and the right kind of drapes. You want something like velvet but that’s too heavy and you’re afraid the place will look more like a boudoir than a cupcake shop. Apparently your subconscious has decided on a black and white theme.

In the end, it looks like a high end club, definitely not children friendly. Perhaps you didn’t need the chandelier. Or the embroidered throne. Or the Louis XIV plastic chairs and the mirror that covers almost an entire wall.

You have no doubts about the cupcake menu, though. There’s Bitter Bitch (black chocolate and a hint of lemon), Sweet Alimony (caramel and cream), Three’s a Party (white, milk and dark chocolate), Last Minute Equalizer (almonds, vanilla and bourbon), Kopcakes (red velvet) and Away Nights (blueberries and biscuits).

You don’t know exactly when the opening night came about. Time passed so quickly when you tried to order ‘really high Vespas’ to use as bar stools.

The place is so crammed you can’t make a step without bumping into a well-wisher, you’ve been air kissed enough for a lifetime.  It really does look like a club, with the DJ blasting the music at almost intolerable heights and your mother making out with a busboy in the corner. There are flash lights snapping from all directions and nobody is eating the cupcakes, but, considering the crowd is filled with models who consider the ultimate favour just being seen next to something edible, it was to be expected.

It’s a great night, really.

The DJ is playing Gold Digger because that’s what you get for hiring the funny kid with a weird haircut.

You are trying to tell some Russian oligarch you are seriously not interested, in not so many words, when you spot them. Dressed to the nines and stuffing themselves with cupcakes.

Your heart swells.

You kiss Xabi on both cheeks and Stevie hugs you so hard he lifts you off the ground.  You can’t believe they came. They go to such lengths to keep their life private, not splashed over page six in some sad attempt to make their ex call them on a number they no longer have and-

‘What are you doing here?’

‘You invited us.’

‘I know.. I just didn’t think you’d come. It’s crowded and there are more photographers here than in the whole Middle East and you still can’t stand these people, which is very, very understandable.’

‘But there are Cupcakes.’

The speakers are blowing with something about sexy silk. _Oh, wrap me around, 'round, 'round, 'round._ You can hear people talking and you insistently want to hide in the bathroom because you appreciate this, you do, but you are already so much in their debt and people are now wondering whether someone else will show up tonight and all the photographers are already half hard at the thought.

Stevie has the same look in his eyes Lexis has before blowing something up.

‘Let’s dance.’

‘Dance?’

Are they insane? No, no dancing. Let’s hide in the bathroom. It will be fun, really, you have playing cards in your purse.

They each take one of your hands and drag you to the dance floor which is already packed. The song changes to something even more pornographic and you really regret hiring the funny kid. The volumes seems to have gone up a notch and you consider making a run for the exit. Because you can deal with the photos and the fact that the media considers books something so very strange and exotic and that people ask you to sign it and that he may or may not have tried to call you and the fact that it’s a pity party in the press one day and a vivid description of your gold digging ways the next. But they shouldn’t have to.

_I love that you came and I’ll send you a crazy amount of cupcakes but please leave before you regret coming._

They keep on tugging your hands and in the kind of shoes you own you can’t help but follow them.

_There goes my shirt up over my head_

_Oh my_

_There goes her skirt droppin ' to her feet_

_Oh my_

It seems like everyone is trying really hard not to look at the three of you. You arms are somehow linked loosely around Xabi’s neck and Stevie’s behind you, his fingers tracing your hipbones and swaying you to the music. Xabi’s hands are on your waist and the small of your back, warm, strong, and you can feel Stevie breathing down your neck and _are they fucking high or what?_

You feel flashes raining down on you and you try to speak but Stevie’s already mumbling in your neck.

‘They’re gonna talk anyway, might as well give them something to talk about.’ One of his hands tugs Xabi even closer and yes, they are definitely high.

You try to protest even as you feel yourself swaying between them. So strong.

‘Our children-’

So very warm.

‘Our children need to learn how to throw a party. The ones Jon gives when we’re away are frankly embarrassing.’

You close your eyes amid the flashlights. Because fuck them, they won’t be able to sell their bloody newspapers nowhere near a church. And there are many, many churches all over the place, okay?

You’re so close together, the music vibrating with such power, their fingers linked on your hipbone, your back moulded into Stevie and your hands playing in Xabi’s hair; you’re almost sure that in some countries it’s illegal to be quite so close. But you are..you really are.

So. very…close.

Xabi lowers to whisper in your ear and you’re fairly certain there’s a fire hazard somewhere.

‘This one’s not in the book.’

You fall laughing into his shoulder and it vibrates through all of you.

You start _really_ putting on the moves. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so apparently, Steven did pay for Alex's breast implants as mentioned in Johnathan Boggan’s best man speech at Stevie’s wedding: 'You deserve a pat on the back for a lot of the good things you’ve done in your life, none more so than when you got Alex’s jugs done! I wish you both the best in the world!' (And the award for best speech ever goes toooooo....)
> 
> I realize the probability of the dancing scene happening is very, very small, but the girl's been through a lot, okay, she deserves to be between Stevie and Xabi for an hour or two. We all do, actually! But still, this is not a threesome, I repeat, this is not a threesome. Not in my mind at least. 
> 
>  
> 
> [This](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ly90Dy5dsQM) is the song playing.


	20. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there's a wedding.

Your head barely hits the pillow when you hear some very violent pounding on the door. You’re wondering how the fuck did he manage to get himself locked in the bathroom when you realise the knocking, if you can call it that, is coming from the main entrance.

‘You expecting someone?’

‘What do you think?’

You both look at the door for a couple of moments, heads tilted, as if it is some very strange, magical object.

Wine has that effect on people.

You shrug and decide to open the door. Whoever it is on the other side seems determined enough to break it down so you think you’d save him the trouble.

You are greeted by the sight of your ex-husband, red in the face and knuckles almost bloody from all the knocking, Carra on his side, not even trying to hide his delight at whatever debacle they are up to. Xabi is leaning on the opposite wall, eyes closed and a dumb smile on his face.

‘What were you two doing that you couldn’t answer sooner? I’ve been knocking for hours...Neah, don’t answer that. We need to talk.’

They get in and bang the door in their wake. Xabi immediately makes a beeline for the bed.

‘You alright?’, you ask, turning to him as he delves deeper under the covers.

‘Yesss.’

‘Are you drunk?’

‘Yesss.’

He still has an idiotic smile on, as he buries his face in your pillow.

‘I had to.. I had to drink everything in his glass to make sure he wouldn’t say anything stupid. Swirled it around like wine’, cue uncoordinated hand gesture, ‘and downed it like water.’

‘Alex, we need to talk.’

‘Yeah, Stevie, you said that.. Hang on.’

You bring Xabi a glass of water and get into bed next to him and Carra who’s eating peanuts from your minibar. James comes to sit near you, knowing better than to ask what the hell is going on.

You use all the pillows in sight to make yourself comfortable and then look expectantly at Stevie who’s burning holes in the carpet with his non-stop pacing.

‘We need to stop the wedding.’

Xabi starts snoring.

‘Come again?’

‘She’s too young to get married. We have to stop her.’

You _knew_ having a rehearsal dinner was a bad idea. You told Lilly, but she was immune to the Golden Rule of the more time you give Stevie to do something stupid, the more likely he is to do something stupid. Simple stuff.

‘Stevie, she’s getting married. Tomorrow. To a nice man who calls me mum. They have been dating for more than three years now and they’ve known each other since two monarchs ago.’

‘We could kidnap her!’

You bang your head against the wall.

‘I could have it arranged, get a car, a plane ticket to somewhere nice… She always wanted to go to Brazil.’

‘She _is_ going to Brazil. On her honeymoon.’

‘Take the car, tell her I’m taking her to the church and boom!! Airport!’

‘Carra, come on, help me here.’

He looks at you, blinks once, wrinkles his nose, and then continues purposefully chewing the peanuts.

‘Neah, to be honest, I always thought Lilly would end up with me James so I’m with Stevie on this one. ’

‘Carra, for fuck’s sake, your son is married!’

‘We could buy her something’, Stevie yells at you in some sort of alcohol induced Eureka moment.

‘Oh God!’

‘A car.. Or a pet monkey.’

Xabi starts mumbling, ‘Steven, you’re doing me head in. Shut up and come to bed.’

‘What, this bed? ’ you protest meekly.

‘And turn off the lights, will you?’, Carra adds, rolling on his side, not a care in the world.  

James looks at you like, yeah, pretty normal stuff, I’m sleeping with my girlfriend, her ex-husband, the best dressed man in Spain according to GQ, and the guy who told me they’d have to organize some sort of an Easter Egg Hunt for my body parts if I so much as breath the wrong way.

Standard.

You fall asleep with surprising ease, though.

You wake up at around five in the morning with a stiff neck because Carra snatched your pillow.

You notice the balcony door is open, fresh wind blowing the curtains, and you sleepily climb out the bed to go outside.

Xabi’s leaning on the railing, the first rays of the morning sun warming his profile. He nods at you and it seems the movement put him in quite a lot of pain.

‘Hey.’

‘Hey. How’s the hangover? ’

‘I’ll live’, he grimaces, drinking half of the water bottle he’d been holding.

‘You better. I can’t stop Stevie from trying to bribe the groom halfway through the service all by myself.’

He smiles and you watch the sunrise in silence. It might be the fact that you’re still half asleep and he’s still half drunk and the lights are mingling in the horizon because you are still too vain to wear glasses, but it feels so much like a dream it scares you.

Xabi seems to know exactly what you’re thinking.

‘I can’t believe it either.. sometimes.’

You mean to tease him a bit, _what, is happiness that difficult to live with, robbing you of the tall, dark stranger look? You know you’ll always look tragic to me, love…_

You don’t. You know very well that with this kind of happiness there’s a certain degree of fear. It doesn’t happen every day, or every week or even every month, and it barely lasts a moment. But in that instant you’re scared to open your eyes because you’re not sure who you’ll see on the other side of the bed.

‘Yeah, it feels like a deux ex machina.’

He raises an eyebrow.

‘What? You pick things up.’

He grins and kisses your cheek.

You go back to bed.

Several hours later you are woken up by your ringing phone.  You barely pressed the green button when Lexi started screaming her head off about some veil emergency. You try to assure her you’ll be right there but you’re not sure she stopped talking long enough to breath, let alone hear you speak.  You put the phone on the nightstand and try to think of something to wear to a mental breakdown. Lexi’s ranting can still be heard from the phone. You take a look at the bed to see if anyone else is up and you’re eyebrows shoot up of their own accord.

James has an arm lazily draped over Carra’s waist and Stevie has his face nuzzled in the back of his neck.

You try not to laugh, you try not to make a sound, you try not to bump into anything.

You fail.

Carra’s screaming could make the un-dead come to life, kill them and then resurrect them in the blink of an eye.

James and Stevie are talking over each other.

‘I thought you were Alex-’

‘I thought you were Xabi-’

‘Jesus Christ, keep your hands to yourselves for fuck’s sake.’

‘But, Jamie, everybody wants a piece of you’, you giggle from the bathroom as you’re slipping into a dress.

‘Oh, Carra, will you be our third?’ Xabi sleepily mumbles from his pillow.

‘Shut up you! Nobody wants to be the odd man at an orgy.’

You stop in your tracks. Such wisdom.. Now _that’s_ the kind of advice you’ll pass on to your daughter on her wedding day.

You bang the door with a _have fun_ and go calm down Lily.

That takes about two minutes; the hard part remains to make Lexie stop ranting before Lilly gets annoyed and tries to beat her with the bouquet. Lou seems immune to the chaos around her or just unwilling to lose a limb in an attempt to tell Lexie to calm the fuck down.

You are worried as hell something will go wrong: Lily realizing the flowers are not the right colour, Lexie stepping on her gown, Lou forgetting the ring, Stevie starting growling during the ceremony, Carra mumbling to his son ‘ _It should have been you!_ ’ over and over again..

You are quite legitimately worried.

But once the wedding starts there’s a serenity engulfing you. One glance at the happy couple and you know it could all go down in flames and they’d still be looking at each other with all the love in the world.

Stevie looks like he’s about to burst with pride and Xabi’s crushing his hand in a death grip that has very little to do with the fact that you asked him to keep him immobilized in case he makes a move to tackle the groom.

You’re crying into James’s suit.

The priest stutters a few times- he’s a Liverpool fan- and Pepe offers to officiate the wedding himself. Lexie throws him a look that could make hell freeze over. Oh God, Lou and her make the most beautiful bridesmaids.

You sob even harder, thanking high heavens you didn’t put on any mascara, especially when they read their vows. Hell, even Carra is wiping his eyes, even if he’ll later pretend he’s allergic to lace or some shit.

The reception is lively and loud. And not just because Pepe brought his entire family.

The courses pass one by one, drenched in laughter and champagne. Laughter turns into sobbing when you see Lilly and Stevie dancing together. You promise James to buy him a new suit. He kisses you. In the end, there was no movie. And even _you_ managed to forgive what The New Yorker called a ‘300 pages love letter’.

Jon is eyeing Mia Carragher and you write a note in your phone to pray for him.

Daniel’s son is asking Lou do dance and you swoon imagining the cheekbones on their babies. Talking about babies, you have in your arms the newest addition to the Reina family, six months old and all eyes. His parents disappeared half an hour ago. To make another one probably.

Nicola, who was dancing with Xabi, comes over, takes the baby from your arms and starts talking in a baby voice, telling you to go on the dance floor. You leave Carra and James talking about horses or some other thing you can bet on and loose spectacularly and start dancing with Xabi.

He’s as good as he looks, you’ve never been so twirled around in your life.

After a few songs you end up dancing with Carra, while Stevie dances with Lou, Xabi with Lexie and James with Lily. You keep changing partners for hours.  

Your heart warms up when you see Carra and Nicola having a conversation with just their eyes, you beam when you spot Lou and Daniel’s son dancing, heads bent together in conversation, you laugh like mad when Pepe lifts you off your feet and spins you around until you’re too dizzy to beg him to stop, you smile when you see Stevie and Xabi swaying on the edge of the dance floor, Xabi’s hand playing with the Scouser’s collar, Stevie’s hand resting lightly under Xabi’s tuxedo jacket, you stop dead in your tracks when you realize you haven’t seen neither Jon nor Mia in a long time and send another prayer, this time that Carra won’t commit murder at a wedding.   

Your blood goes wild when James takes you in his arms with no apparent intention to ever let you go. Or at least until your feet can’t stand walking, let alone dancing.

Around you, people keep swaying in some sort of movement choreographed only by love and hard liqueur.

It’s only much later, when the happy couple has already left, along with many of the guests, that you end up in Stevie’s arms. He made a point to ask _‘you mind’_ and James was all _‘go ahead, I’ll just go step on someone else’s feet for a change’,_ mindlessly kissing the corner of your mouth before leaving, making you blush like a schoolgirl.

Stevie looks at you in a way that says _‘nice fella you got there’_  and you swat his arm in a way that means _‘you don’t want to step on my toes’,_ he laughs and you glare at him _‘no, really, please don’t step on my toes’._

You have a feeling the band only keeps playing because the lead has a crush on Lexi. A crush that, by the looks of it, is very much reciprocated. She’s dancing with Carra, dragging him as close to the scene as possible.

Yolanda dances with Xabi while Pepe runs around looking for his children.

Lou and Daniel’s son have long disappeared. Daniel is still here, with his wife resting her head on his shoulder, listening to one of Steven’s drunk uncles describing in contradictory detail what kind of tattoo he would have gotten thirty years ago had his wife not stopped him.

You look up at Stevie and take in his blue eyes. You know he got old but you can’t help but see the same boy who was hell bent on conquering the world, who blew kisses at the camera, who ran to the stands after scoring from 40 yards, who couldn’t sleep before a derby..

You smile and rest your head on his heart.

_It’s quiet company._

You resist the urge to start crying in his tuxedo. You’ve done that enough for a day. And there are many more weddings to come.

_Your shivered bones_

_They didn't want me to._

You feel so safe in his strong arms it’s dizzy. Yes, you are both in love with different people now. But had it not been for that you could have lived a thousand lives in a state of comfortable complicity.

_It takes an ocean not to break_

‘We..we did good, didn’t we?’

You nod into his chest.

 ‘We’re in the top four.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [This](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqHdi_94SR4) is the song playing when Stevie and Alex dance. I have no idea why anyone would play Terrible Love at a wedding (I tried finding something else but it was too late for my mind); I'll just blame it on the lead singer trying to make a move on Lexie and pulling on the Berninger charm. 
> 
> I started writing this almost a year ago (I'm soooo slow, it took me more than two months just to re-write and write again and then delete and then re-write and maybe add some commas), as a thank you for a friend who introduced me to this madness. I wouldn't have guessed being inside Alex's head would be so much fun. 
> 
> Thanks a lot for reading and commenting (it really brightened my days) and generally being awesome.
> 
> Oh, I really believe being in their forties won't stop in any manner the Reina family from expanding.


End file.
